The New Detective
by HelloKitty123456789
Summary: There's a new detective at SVU who will cause nothing but trouble for the characters that we all know and love! Will contain mention of rape and violence. M to be safe. Please bear with me, the first few chapters set the scene a bit, the action comes later...
1. Chapter 1

Charlotte Van Horne stood on the stage looking out at the crowd. The bright lights were hot, imposingly so and she breathed heavily, trying desperately to get some much needed oxygen into her lungs. Damn, she was out of practice. The atmosphere in the room was electric. The audience was lapping up the performance of her best friend, an up and coming singer, who was putting on the best show she ever had. Yeah, she was only a support act, but she had the potential to be huge, and Charlotte was honoured to be asked to fill in for one of her dancers. She knew she was going to be exhausted the next morning, but she wanted to be there for her friend on what was the biggest night of her life. The girls were almost blinded by the lights as the set ended and Maddie introduced the main act. Charlotte hugged her beautiful and talented friend as they made their way off the stage, taking one last look at the audience who applauded and cheered, both of them feeling blissfully happy. It was only when the two girls were almost at the wings they saw it. A young girl was stumbling across the floor, crying and screaming, covered in blood. Charlotte stopped, and could do nothing but watch as the girl collapsed on the floor, as the crowd parted and bystanders began to shriek.

Quickly Charlotte jumped into action, taking Maddie's hand and pulling her backstage, instructing her and her security to go to her dressing room, lock the door and stay there until she said otherwise. Turning to the main act's security she told them to go and assist her, but not to allow her to leave the building. Grabbing her bag she pulled out her gun and her cell phone, along with a black wallet, before running back onto the stage and jumping down on to the dance floor. Shouting at the venue's bouncers not to allow anyone else to leave, to prevent the remaining crowd from exiting the building but to keep them back and call the police, she struggled to make her way through the crowd to make her way to the young woman lying lifeless on the dirty floor. Some of the guards stood frozen, unable to comprehend the situation and why they were being ordered around by a dancer. She flashed her wallet at them and screamed, "Go." Quickly they jumped into action.

Finally Charlotte reached the girl and quickly seeing that she wasn't breathing and was face down on the floor, she turned her over and looked at her face. "Oh my God, Blair," she thought as she was pulling her around onto her back, forcing herself to remain calm and not panic. She started to give CPR, willing Blair to take a breath, relieved when she did and her eyes fluttered before she slipped back into unconsciousness.

Uniformed police officers made a loud entrance into the club, instructing everyone to stay where they were. Two officers pushed their way through the crowd, approaching the two girls on the floor, guns drawn, growing agitated as they noticed the gun on the floor at Charlotte's knees. Charlotte looked up, surprised to find herself staring down the barrels of two guns.

"Freeze," one shouted, "step away from the girl."

Charlotte shuffled back from Blair, trying to get her breath back from her efforts to resuscitate the girl next to her. "Relax," she said, with her hands in the air, keeping her voice even and un-threatening, "I'm on the job. My badge is in the wallet, let me slide it over to you."

The uniformed officers glanced at each other before the more senior one of the two said, "fine, but I swear to God you reach for your gun and you'll be dead before it's drawn."

Charlotte nodded, slowly lowering her right hand to the floor, placing it over the black leather wallet at her knees and shoved it towards the officer standing nearest to her, who crouched down to pick it up, never taking her gun off Charlotte for a second.

"Detective Charlotte Van Horne," she read, "Special Victims Unit." She handed it to her partner who glanced at it and indicated that she could stand.

"What do we got here Detective," he asked finally lowering his weapon.

Charlotte glanced from Blair to the officer. She was still trying to make sense of what had happened. "Um, female vic, early twenties, collapsed. She was unconscious when I got to her and not breathing so I began CPR…" she was halted by Blair groaning and knelt back at her side, taking her hand saying, "it's ok honey, I'm here, I've got you."

Blair's eyes rolled, and she coughed, "I was raped."

Charlotte's heart stopped as she gripped on to her hand. She looked at the unis and shakily instructed, "call the Manhattan SVU and chase up that damn ambulance."

The younger officer put in the call while her superior eyed Charlotte with suspicion, "I thought _you_ were SVU?"

Charlotte took a deep breath, "I am, tomorrow was meant to be my first day."

Detective Olivia Benson shot up in bed at the sound of her cell phone ringing loudly on her night stand. "Benson," she said sleepily, trying to stifle a yawn. "Yeah, got it, I'll be right there." She rose from the bed, rubbing the sleep from her eyes as she grabbed her discarded clothes from the night before. She had barely managed to get an hour's sleep and was exhausted from working an eighteen hour day just a few hours prior. Within five minutes she was ready to leave as she grabbed her badge, gun, cell phone and keys on her way out of the door. Still trying to wake herself up she got into the car that she never used, but had decided that it would be quicker to just drive her own car, rather than attempt to get the squad car. The traffic was still heavy as she made her way to the address her CO had given her, hoping that she wouldn't have to wait too long on her partner. When she pulled up outside the, she had to say 'classy' establishment that was the Underground Klub, yes with a 'K' and not a 'C', she was surprised to see Detective Odafin Tutuola waiting for her, rather than her usual partner Nick Amaro. She climbed out of the car and approached him.

"Hey, where's Nick," she asked as she walked towards him.

"It's his week with Zara, he couldn't get a sitter," Fin told her as they walked towards the police tape, which he raised for Olivia to duck under as she flashed her badge at the young uniformed officer standing guard. The detectives took in the scene as they walked along musty corridors that smelled of sweat, alcohol and smoke, across a floor that was so disgusting and sticky it felt like it hadn't been cleaned since the day the club had opened. The paint was peeling from the walls and there were various faded posters, some of which were for acts who had previously played the club, some advertising safe sex and the standard 'drink responsibly' notices. It made Olivia think of the amount of time she had spent in dives exactly like this in her college days and couldn't believe that she had actually enjoyed herself.

When they entered the main room of the venue they were surprised to see the patrons lined up against the perimeter walls, with uniformed officers taking names and addresses from scared looking twenty some-things, and the odd terrified looking under-ager. A small brunette woman was standing over a young girl on the floor, talking to another uniformed officer, occasionally bending down to check that she was alright. They approached the little group with their badges on display, more than a little irritated that these people were messing with their victim.

"Detective Olivia Benson, this is Detective Tutuola, Manhattan Special Victims Unit. Who are you," she asked, trying to keep the annoyance from her voice, directing her question to the unidentified female.

The woman looked at her and held out her hand, "Detective Charlotte Van Horne, I was meant to be starting at your unit tomorrow, but I guess our perp had other ideas, I was on the scene, when I saw the vic stumble from the left and collapse on the ground just here. I had the security move the patrons away and had the unis start taking details from them, along with some short statements. I also had the two acts who were playing tonight wait in their dressing rooms with their staff. One of them was just leaving the stage with myself when she appeared."

Fin held out his hand to Charlotte, "Odafin Tutuola. Do we have an ID for our vic?"

Charlotte cleared her throat and looked uncomfortable. "Yeah, her name is Blair Williams, twenty five years old, she said that she was raped, but then she passed out."

Olivia saw the look on Charlotte's face, "Do you know her?"

Charlotte shifted her weight, "yeah I do, she was my best friend in high school. We grew up together." She looked down at Blair sadly, hurting so much for her best friend, while trying to maintain her 'cop' composure. Charlotte rarely lost her cool, even when it felt like her world was falling apart, but she wanted to burst into tears at the thought of the ordeal that her friend had endured. She noticed that the other two detectives were looking at her with interest, knowing that they had suddenly noticed her attire and also that they were waiting for her to elaborate on the revelation she had just made.

When she didn't, finally Benson asked, "I take it you were here to see the band?"

"Um no, actually I was dancing onstage. I'm friend's with the support act and she asked me to fill in, one of her usual dancers is sick. Hence the outfit. I didn't even know Blair would be here tonight, I haven't spoken to her in a couple of months…," she explained, but was interrupted by the eventual arrival of the EMTs. The three detectives moved to allow them to examine the young woman. "I should go with her to the hospital, she should have someone with her."

"Actually, why don't I go, you may be too close to this," Olivia said, slightly pissed that this new girl had come in and managed the crime scene so well, but she wasn't sure why it bothered her. Besides from the fact that she barely looked old enough to have graduated high school, let alone work her way up to the rank of detective.

Charlotte didn't argue. She wasn't sure she could handle facing Blair and what she needed was for someone to be strong for her. But Blair seemed to have other ideas. She began to wake up, and seeing all the unfamiliar faces around her she immediately began to freak out. "Charley," she moaned weakly as she began to thrash around on the gurney that the EMTS had placed her on.

Charlotte turned around and took her hand. "I'm here honey, it's ok."

Blair looked into Charlotte's eyes, "please don't leave me, I'm scared," she mumbled, suddenly feeling less panicked now that she knew she had her friend with her. Charlotte looked at Olivia, who nodded, indicating that she should go with her. Olivia knew how distressing this process could be for the victims and it was always best to make them feel as safe as possible. Perhaps the new kid could manage this, perhaps not, but if it made the victim feel even remotely better that was all that mattered.

"We'll finish up here and then I'll come meet you at the hospital," she said as Charlotte started to walk away with the EMTs. She nodded and diverted her attention back to Blair, soothing her as best she could.

Fin was speaking to the uniformed officers who had been taking the patrons' statements, asking if they had anything of interest when Olivia joined them.

"Nope, people are unwilling to put themselves close to the victim, let alone anyone else," the uni said.

Fin sighed, "so a girl gets attacked and everyone is too busy looking out for themselves to help her. Gotta love this city," he grumbled, but he hadn't really expected any other answer. They agreed that Fin would remain at the club to speak to the acts, while Olivia would tail their newest recruit to the hospital, both recognising that there was not a lot they could do at that moment in time with unwilling witnesses.


	2. Chapter 2

Olivia left the club in the same way Charlotte and the EMTs had around ten minutes earlier. She drove to Mercy hospital, where the technicians had said they were going, hoping that there wouldn't be a long wait for the rape exam. Tiredness was taking over, she was exhausted and was quite frankly feeling tired of her job as well. The job that she used to love. She was sick of seeing young, broken women at the worst points of their lives, and dealing with the scumbags who had hurt them in the worst ways imaginable. She pictured Blair lying on the ground broken and bleeding, and the fear in her voice as she had called out for her friend. Honestly at this point Olivia wasn't sure she could handle this, so she took a moment to compose herself as she pulled up in the parking lot. Breathing heavily, with her hands on the steering wheel she allowed herself a minute to find the strength that she always showed when dealing with victims, climbed out of the car and walked into the Emergency Department of the hospital. Approaching the reception desk she caught the attention of a beleaguered looking nurse, flashed her badge, and asked for Blair's room. She hurried down the corridor, knocked quietly on the door and opening it a fraction she motioned for Charlotte to join her in the hallway.

"How is she doing," she asked the younger woman, who looked just as tired as she felt.

"The doc says that she has a concussion and took one hell of a beating. I'm trying to convince her to take a rape exam but she is in shock. She's scared and doesn't know that she has the strength or the willpower to go through with this."

Olivia nodded. "Vics often find this part as hard, if not worse than the attack itself. Do you want me to try?"

Charlotte turned to look through the doors window at her friend and sighed, "yeah, if she doesn't do it I know she'll regret it."

The two women entered the room again and Charlotte approached Blair, " hey, sweetie, this is my colleague Detective Benson. She's here to see how you are."

Blair looked away. "I don't need some bitch telling me to press charges. I just want to forget it."

Charlotte flashed an apologetic look at Olivia, who said, "Blair, I know this is hard, but you should get the exam. Pressing charges can help you get closure and help you to move on. Don't you want to see the man who did this to you behind bars?"

Blair began to cry, "I just want this to have never happened."

Charlotte took her hand again, "I know. But the best way you can get your revenge is by taking this to court. Telling the world that he had no right to do what he did to you."

Blair looked at Charlotte. "Do you really think it will help? Will you stay with me?"

"Of course I will. And I do really believe that this will help."

Blair nodded in agreement, and Charlotte and Olivia excused themselves for a moment before retreating out to the corridor.

"We need to find a doctor. Oh, I called her mother, she should be on her way. But we need to keep her away from Blair as long as possible. She'll try and talk Blair out of taking the exam."

Olivia looked confused. Seeing the look Charlotte explained, "where we come from a scandal like this could make you a pariah."

"Why? Religious reasons?"

"No. We grew up on the Upper East Side, and pretty much everything there is a scandal."

Olivia raised her eyebrows. "I know," said Charlotte, "but seriously you can't go to the bathroom without making something of it."

Blair's doctor approached, "is she ready to do the rape kit now?"

Olivia nodded and the two detectives followed her into the room. Blair took a deep breath as the exam started and reached for Charlotte's hand for support. She flinched with every flash of the camera documenting her injuries, she shuddered with every movement and tears leaked down her cheeks. Charlotte looked into the face of her friend, admiring her strength and determination to get through the procedure. Suddenly Blair tensed, and looked out of the window, seeing the woman in the corridor outside. Charlotte turned to see what Blair was staring at, squeezed her hand and whispered, "I'll be back in a minute."

Olivia made a move to follow her but Charlotte held up her hand, "it's ok, I've got this. You stay with Blair." She left the room, pulling the door closed behind her and approached the woman. "Mrs Williams…," she began, but before she could finish a young girl launched herself at Charlotte, fastening her arms around her waist. Charlotte looked down in surprise, "Mia, honey? What are you doing here?"

"Mom said that Blair got hurt. Is she ok? Can we see her?"

Charlotte looked at the stony expression on Mrs Williams face. "She's in with the doctor now being examined. She conscious but we need to find out the full extent of her injuries. Maybe you should wait in the cafeteria or waiting room and I'll come and get you when they are done."

"Charlotte, I want to see my daughter."

Charlotte looked pained. "I can't let you right now. She needs to be examined."

Mia looked from Charlotte to her mother, reading the expressions on their faces.

"Charlotte Van Horne you cannot keep me from seeing my daughter, she needs me," Mrs Williams snapped.

Charlotte looked down at Mia, handed her a dollar and said, "Mia, babe, why don't you go get a candy bar from the machine, it's just down the hall?" She waited until Mia was out of earshot and then turned to her friend's mother, "Mrs Williams, I know this is hard but Blair is a mess right now. She's been hurt badly and Mia doesn't need to see her like that. Please, let the doctor examined her, clean her up and wait in the cafeteria or waiting room. I swear I'll come and get you the minute the doctor says I can."

Mrs Williams pursed her lips but nodded stiffly and walked towards her daughter who was still selecting what she wanted from the vending machine. Charlotte sighed, waited until they had disappeared from sight and then re-entered the room. She cast Olivia a look that conveyed her concern before turning her attention back to Blair, who was weakly asking, "Mom? She's not here is she?"

"Yes honey she is, but I asked her to go to the waiting room until you're ready. She wasn't happy, but she agreed that Mia shouldn't see you like this."

Blair became more and more distressed, "she brought Mia? No, no, no, Mia can't see me like this. She doesn't need to see this."

Charlotte reached up to stroke her friend's hair soothingly and shushed her, "It's ok, you don't have to do anything you don't feel up for."

"Except for this damn rape exam," Blair said, glaring at Olivia and Charlotte in turn.

Charlotte gave Olivia a resigned look. She knew that Blair would feel angry at some point, but she hadn't expected it so soon. Blair always had had a temper, and tended to lash out at whoever was at hand when she felt scared or threatened. Convincing her to take this matter further was going to be an uphill battle, especially as Charlotte knew, with Mrs Williams trying her best to talk her out of it. She just prayed that Blair would find the strength to fight, and bring the bastard that hurt her to justice.

The exam finished, and Blair was finally allowed to get cleaned up. She winced as she pulled her gown back up so that she was covered. Charlotte moved to help her but Blair flinched and shrugged her off. The detective stepped back, she knew that rape victims often didn't want to be touched, particularly after suffering the further violation of the rape exam. The doctor pulled the detectives to one side.

"She has a pretty severe concussion, and given that she had to be resuscitated at the scene and the length of time she was unconscious I want to keep her in overnight. She has a few fractured ribs, cuts and bruises. She'll be sore for a few days. I must ask you not to question her tonight, she needs to rest. Save the interview for the morning."

Olivia opened her mouth to protest but Charlotte cut in, "thanks doctor, we will. Let her sleep now. Is she ready for visitors? Her mom and sister are waiting."

The doctor hesitated but nodded. As she left the room Olivia pulled at Charlotte's arm. "Look, I know you're new here, but we usually try to talk to a victim while everything is fresh in their mind."

"Look at her Detective Benson. She is in no state to do this tonight. She trusts me and I know my friend. We have more chance of getting her to pursue this if we take it easy. She doesn't respond to pressure and quite frankly, I think she's had enough tonight."

"Well maybe you are too close to this. You know the vic and that might be colouring your judgement. You're a cop, not her friend right now."

Charlotte glared at the older woman but threw her hands up in defeat. Olivia, realising that she had perhaps been too harsh placed a hand on Charlotte's shoulder, "look, you did a good job at the scene and you have been brilliant with Blair here. It's hard coming in to a new unit and this is doubly tough because you know her. I know that you are trying to look after her."

She left the room to get Mrs Williams while Charlotte stood in silence. She was a cop and needed to try and separate that from being Blair's friend and handling her with kid gloves. She had a job to do. When Olivia returned Mrs Williams gave her a look to kill, still smarting from Charlotte's treatment of her in the corridor earlier. But that icy expression melted when she saw her daughter lying on the bed, broken and bruised, her long blonde hair matted, still with traces of blood, one eye swollen shut and a face that was more black and blue than milky white. Her lip was split and her breathing was laboured due to the pain from her ribs. She was still shaking and looked exhausted. Mrs Williams reached out and took her hand, trying to think of something to say that would comfort her daughter. Mia was clinging to her mother's other hand, unable to stop looking at the injured form that was her older sister. Tears ran down the child's face and Charlotte reached out to the little girl, pulling her in to a tight hug, which Mia gladly accepted. A tear trickled down Blair's cheek as she heard her twelve year old sister sobbing.

"Mia," she croaked, "Mia, I'm going to be alright. It looks worse than it is. Trust me sweetheart, I'm going to be ok."

Mia looked at her sister through her hair, still clinging to Charlotte for dear life. She nodded and hiccupped as she tried to control her tears. Olivia, seeing that Blair was becoming distressed at her younger sister's state held out her hand to Mia saying, "hey sweetie, why don't we give Charlotte and your mum some time with Blair? We can wait outside." Mia looked relieved and accepted Olivia's hand, giving Blair a small wave as she left. As soon as the door was closed Mrs Williams turned to the young detective with a face full of anger.

"Why didn't you protect her? This is your fault, you were there, you should have stopped this," she said angrily.

Charlotte opened her mouth to retort, but Blair got there first. "Mom, it wasn't her fault, there's nothing she could have done. She did everything she could for me. I just want to sleep, I don't want to talk. I have to make a statement tomorrow and I just need to rest."

For the second time that night Mrs Williams pursed her lips but again nodded and made to leave, Charlotte following her. "Char," Blair croaked when her friend was at the door, "will you stay? I don't feel safe and I don't want to be alone right now."


	3. Chapter 3

Charlotte was awoken by the door creaking open and as was reflex she was immediately on alert and pulling her gun from where it was tucked into the back of her shorts. She was jumpy, as Blair had woken twice through the night screaming and thrashing around, having had nightmares of her attack and it had taken quite some time to calm her down. Charlotte had been lucky if she had slept for an hour. Just as she had drawn her weapon Olivia entered the room, her free hand raised in defence, the other carrying a tray of coffee and a brown paper bag.

"Hey, it's ok, it's just me," she said as Charlotte tucked her gun away.

The doctors came in a couple of hours later and cleared Blair for discharge. Charlotte helped her as she got dressed, and Olivia led the two women out into the squad car. When they pulled up at the 1-6 Charlotte got out of the car and took a second to look up at the imposing building. She had wanted to work in Special Victims for years, she wanted to make a difference in people's lives, help them when all seemed lost. Olivia saw her looking and smiled to herself. Charlotte reminded her of herself when she first started at SVU. They arrived in the squad room and escorted Blair to an interview room, telling her to get comfortable and that they would be back momentarily. Olivia cleared her throat. "Guys, this is Detective Charlotte Van Horne, she's joining us from homicide. Until we get her settled in I'll be taking her under my wing, so Amaro, you'll be a swing man, help whoever needs you."

As her fellow detectives looked her up and down Charlotte suddenly became aware of her clothing, or lack of it. She was still wearing the outfit she had worn onstage the previous night, which consisted of a tiny pair of denim shorts, a little corset style top and ankle boots with ridiculous heels. Her hair and makeup were still immaculate, as though she had just stepped out of a beauty parlour. A blonde woman approached her with her hand outstretched, "Detective Amanda Rollins, it's nice to meet you," she said in a southern drawl and with a smile that did not quite meet her eyes. She couldn't help but notice that this new woman looked very young, and looked far too young to be a police detective.

Amaro appeared to share this view as when he extended his hand to Charlotte to introduce himself he said snappily, "if you don't mind me saying, you're hardly old enough to have made the academy."

Fin and Olivia observed this exchange with interest. They both had thought the same but were far too polite to mention it. Charlotte coughed, "I've been a detective for the last two years, been in the force since nineteen, made detective at 22. Worked homicide before this and requested a transfer here."

"Wow, you work fast," Amanda muttered.

Thinking that this was a good time to intervene Olivia stepped in and pulled Charlotte away from the detectives who were now looking at her like vultures, barely bothering to contain their immediate dislike of the new girl. Charlotte noticed this and sighed. She had got the same reception in homicide, her fellow detectives there had hazed her for a good six months before they began to take her seriously. Even then some were still frosty towards her for almost a year before they accepted her onto the team. It was wearing to have to go into work every day and prove yourself time and time again, when most other newbies would be given the benefit of the doubt. But she was prepared to do it, defy their expectations and show them that she knew what she was doing. She shook her long brown hair out of her eyes and walked towards the interview room.

When they entered the room Blair was standing, staring out of the window and she jumped when she heard the door close. Olivia took charge of the interview, making Blair go through every moment of her attack while she noted it down.

"I had been to the bar to get a beer, and a guy offered me a drink. I refused because I already had one and went back to stand and watch the singer. I went to the restroom, I was getting too hot and felt a bit tipsy. There was no one else there, at least that's what I thought. So when I was washing my face I was a bit surprised to hear one of the doors of the stalls creak. When I looked up into the mirror I saw a man standing behind me dressed in black and wearing a ski mask. I tried to run to the door, but he was faster and he caught me by the hair. He pulled me back, threw me on the floor and kicked me a couple of times in the ribs. I tried to get up but every time I did he would just kick me again. Eventually he stopped, and I pulled myself up, I couldn't see him and I thought he had left. But when I turned around he pushed me up against the wall. He had a knife to my throat and was pulling my hair. I tried to scream but he pressed the blade harder to my neck. I was so scared. He started to push my top up and he tried to kiss me. I was trying to twist away but I was terrified that he would cut me, I could hardly move. His whole body was pressed up against me and I could feel him getting harder and harder. Then he raped me. I was crying, begging for him to stop, but he didn't, he wouldn't listen to me. He just kept going and going. I wanted to die. Eventually when he was done je zipped himself back up and let me fall to the ground. He stopped to pull my head back, and he ripped out some of my hair. He punched me over and over in the face, laughed at me and then left. I could hardly move. Everywhere hurt. Eventually I managed to stumble out of the ladies room and that's the last thing I remember before waking up to find Charlotte standing over me."

"Is there anything you can tell us about his appearance," Olivia asked gently.

"Like I said, he was wearing a mask but he was white. Maybe 6'4. And his eyes were green. They were so cold. Oh and he had a tattoo of a snake on his right forearm. I saw it when his sleeve rode up after he punched me."

Olivia nodded and continued to ask her questions. Charlotte dropped her eyes to the table, the pain in Blair's voice was killing her. Angry that someone had done that to her friend, but her heart was still breaking. When Detective Benson was finally done Blair sighed in relief. She looked at Charlotte and smiled weakly.

"I'm going to get through this. I know you are going to help me. I trust you C, I can do this."

Charlotte returned the smile, "I know you can B. Doing this will help you. You're strong."

As if on cue Mrs Williams burst into the interview room, with Rollins and Fin on her tail. She stormed over to Blair and reached down to pull her arm, helping her from her chair. "Come on Blair we're leaving, I'm ending this now."

Blair was stunned and Charlotte stepped in her path preventing them from leaving.

"This isn't your decision Mrs Williams. Blair is twenty-five, this is her decision. And we need to find the man who did this to her."

Mrs Williams glared at Charlotte. "People will talk. You of all people know how that feels. They will look at her differently, they will treat her differently, if they stick by her at all."

"Those people aren't worth her time. Right now she needs you. She survived the attack, don't get in the way of her recovery."

Mrs Williams slapped Charlotte hard across the face. Her hand flew up to her cheek and Olivia, Fin and Amanda all took a step closer, but Charlotte shooed them away.

"I'm trying to help your daughter! My colleagues and I will do everything we can to find this man. But I'm going to ask you to leave now, before they collar you for assault."

The older woman looked around the room as though she hadn't noticed the others were present. She looked at Charlotte, whose cheek was now sporting an angry red mark and felt a wave of remorse. She took her daughter by the arm, gave Charlotte an apologetic look and hurried out of the room.

"Are you ok," Fin asked her once the two women had left.

Charlotte scoffed, "I've been hit harder."

SVUSVUSVUSVUSVUSVUSVUSVUSVUSVUSVUSVUSVUSVUSVUSVUSVUSVU

Olivia and Charlotte got numerous lustful looks as they walked into the CSU lab, with many of the technicians stopping to stare at Charlotte when she passed. She tried to ignore their leers, but it was blatantly obvious that they were undressing her with their eyes, not that there was much left to leave to the imagination. They approached the lead technician and Olivia introduced her new partner before asking if he had anything of interest.

"He thought he was smart, but he managed to leave hairs behind in the stall he was hiding in. And there was semen in the rape kit. Warner said that we should get the results in a few days. Apart from that he was too smart."

The detectives nodded and walked away. Olivia's cell phone rang. "Benson. Oh hey honey, what's wrong… Oh Bri, can you not get off sooner? No, no it's ok, I'll take care of it… Just try and make dinner ok? Love you too."

Charlotte raised her eyebrows. "That was my boyfriend, Brian," Olivia said as she put her phone back in her pocket. "I need to take an hour, our son is sick so the minder won't take him, I need to drop him at his grandmother's."

Charlotte and Olivia went their separate ways. Charlotte heading back to the station house stopped past the club to recover the security tapes. Burying herself in witness statements from the night before once back at the squad room, she felt her eyes getting heavy and she prepared herself for a long afternoon. When it came to going through witness statements it was often like looking for a needle in a haystack, but they needed a starting point. Most of the statements were the standard, "I didn't see anything, I don't want to get involved." However she stopped when she came across a name she recognised. Nathanial Tanner. Something stuck out in her mind, this wasn't his usual scene, in fact she was surprised to have seen anyone from her neighbourhood in a dive like the Underground Klub. It was too much of a coincidence to ignore, that he was in a place that he would never be seen dead in on the same night that Blair was attacked. Making a note, she carried on through the pile. Only two people claimed to have seen a man enter the ladies room, but hadn't been able to give much detail. They would need to be re-interviewed. Finally, she turned her attention to the security disc she had retrieved from the club, surprised that the cameras had actually been operational. Just as she was beginning to feel like she was making some headway until she placed the disc into her computer and saw the grainy image that popped up. "Great," she thought, "I'll be lucky if I keep my eyesight, let alone see anything of use on this piece of crap."

Her eyes were blurry and she was so tired that she barely registered when Olivia pulled a chair up and sat down beside her partner. She hadn't even noticed her return. It was two hours before they noticed anything of interest. Charlotte paused the disc and zoomed in. There was a guy in a dark hooded jumper walking back and forth in front of the door to the ladies room. Realising that this could be their guy the detectives shot up, ready to take the disc to TARU for them to clean up.

The detectives left the precinct that evening, all of them looking forward to a relaxing evening and an early night. Charlotte strolled past her doorman and into the elevator that always seemed to take forever when she was exhausted. Her penthouse was immaculately decorated and the walls displayed an impressive art collection. Her kitchen, that she never used, was spotless and the moon glinted off of the black work surface. Wearily she climbed the stairs, made her way to the bedroom, stripping off her clothes as she went and proceeded to her enormous ensuite bathroom, just wanting to soak in the tub until her skin shrivelled before climbing into her comfortable bed. Her plans however, were interrupted by her cell phone ringing loudly from where she had discarded it on the dresser. "Van Horne," she answered out of habit.

Less than ten minutes later Charlotte was headed straight back out, having thrown on the first comfy clothes she could find, grabbing her keys, cell phone, badge, gun and wallet as she went. She balanced her cell phone between her ear and her shoulder as she went about attempting to attach her gun holster to her jeans and insert her weapon inside. She hurried down the block hitting redial on her phone as she went, and continuing to do so as she walked quickly up and down the streets surrounding her apartment building. She ducked in and out of various establishments, searching them quickly and then retreating back out onto the pavement, receiving various snooty looks from patrons who were disgusted by her attire. Finally, she found who she was looking for. Blair was sat on a barstool sipping what looked to be her tenth martini. Charlotte approached her, slipping into the next barstool.

"This isn't the way B. Alcohol won't solve anything."

Blair looked at her with bleary eyes. She was crying, she didn't know what to do, or how to deal with her attack. She felt empty and wanted nothing more than just to pass out and not to have to think about what happened. Charlotte helped Blair to her feet, wrapped an arm around her waist to support her as they walked, careful not to touch her broken ribs. Blair sobbed into her chest as they walked back down the block, leading her back towards her apartment. But as they got closer Blair began to resist, unable to face going home to her mother and sister, let alone having to deal with her brothers. Becoming more and more distressed she began to fight against Charlotte's hold. Understanding her friend's turmoil they turned, this time heading for Charlotte's apartment. Charlotte was loathe to break protocol by having a rape victim stay with her, but she had limited choices in that moment and she was not about to let her stay and drink herself into oblivion.

Eventually she managed to coax her, fully clothed, into the shower to sober her up, before putting her to bed on the sofa, leaving a lamp at the far side of the room on. She collapsed on the other end of the big U shaped sofa, hoping to be able to get some sleep.

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Olivia and Brian were snuggled up on their sofa having watched the late night movie once they had returned home from dinner. Brian kissed the top of her head and pulled her close. It was rare that they had a night together where they could just relax, and even rarer not to have to worry about the baby. It had taken some adjusting to at first, and in all honesty Brian had been pissed that she had made such a monumental decision without consulting him, but had realised that they had pretty much been leading separate lives at the time and so had no right to complain. And after everything Olivia had been through she deserved to be happy, and that was something he intended to make her. She was the best thing that had ever happened to him, and now that she had, eventually, opened up to him about everything that William Lewis had done to her they were moving forward rather than just being stuck. He loved the woman in his arms more than life itself and the look of a lovesick teenager was spread all over his face as he scooped her up into his arms and carried her to the bedroom. Olivia threw her arms around her lover's neck, nuzzling her face into his strong chest, feeling so safe and secure in his hold. She hadn't felt that way in such a long time and she had almost forgotten what feeling content and loved felt like. Her physical scars had healed, but her psychological ones still had a way to go, she still sometimes woke up in the night having dreamed that Lewis' hands were on her, felt his tongue in her mouth, the burn of cigarettes on her skin. But she would fall back to sleep in Brian's arms, focussing on her new family and the fact that she was alive. She had survived and that was all that mattered.

Brian dropped her down onto the generous bed and climbed on after her, kissing her neck and moving down her chest. She ran her fingers through his hair, and brought his face up to meet hers, pulling his lips towards hers, putting all of her passion and love for him into her kiss. It still surprised her how quickly he turned her on, and she loved that she had the same effect on him. After everything they had been through, she had been through, she, and he, had been worried that things would be different. But in fact they were better, perhaps the prospect of losing each other, again, brought them to their senses. They made love to each other several times that night, revelling in the fact that they would not be woken at some ungodly hour by the screams of their son, and that they were once again in sync. Olivia snuggled into Brian's arms as he held her close, they were out of breath but content, both unable to believe that they had found each other. She trailed her finger across his chest and took in his scent, the scent that she adored. He smelled her hair and kissed her forehead, and watched her as she fell asleep, breathing peacefully in his embrace.

He was awoken by the sun streaming through a crack in the curtains the next morning. Glancing down at Olivia's sleeping form he noticed that she looked so peaceful that he couldn't bear to wake her, although he knew that there was a possibility that allowing her to sleep would make her late for work. But, he reasoned, she worked too damned hard anyway, she deserved to have a few more minutes of uninterrupted sleep. However, he needn't have bother, she opened her eyes and looked up at her handsome boyfriend. "Good morning," she mumbled as she leant up to give him a kiss. He looked back at her adoringly, thinking that he could stare into her beautiful brown eyes forever.


	4. Chapter 4

Olivia strolled into the squad room and noticed that all of her colleagues were already at their desks. Charlotte looked more exhausted than the day before. Before she could ask why Charlotte explained the events of the night before. Olivia's brows knitted together, she didn't approve, but knew that in that situation she would have done the same thing.

They proceeded to visit the TARU who had informed them that they had cleaned up the disc enough to get something. One of the techs dids a double take as the two detectives walked down the hall.

"Charlotte? Charlotte Van Horne?"

Charlotte stopped in her tracks and sighed before she turned on her heel, smiled and put her arms around him, "Wesley, it's so good to see you again. I'm really sorry, we're in something of a rush. Say hi to your mother for me." She flashed him another dazzling smile and walked away, with Olivia looking after her in amazement.

"We're in a rush," she whispered as she rushed to catch up with her partner.

Charlotte grimaced, "let's say on occasion I've been known to do stupid things."

Olivia smiled, "he was one of them?"

"Met him in a bar, one night stand, suddenly he wanted a relationship and practically stalked me for a month, bombarding me with text messages and phone calls."

Olivia rolled her eyes, "but you met his mom?

At this Charlotte laughed, "she made me breakfast the next morning."

Olivia joined her partner's laughter, "Oh. Been there. Not quite as creepy as that…"

Still laughing Charlotte admitted, "trust me this is one of the PG13 stories."

Olivia gave her a look of interest, but they had arrived at the TARU tech's desk. He froze for a minute when he saw the two beautiful detectives standing before him, introduced himself to Charlotte and proceeded to explain what he had discovered on the CCTV disc that they had given him the night before. He had identified two possible perps, and had managed to clean up the disc so as to provide a clear still of their faces. The detectives thanked him before turning on their heels to leave. One of their possibilities was Nathanial Tanner and Charlotte sighed inwardly. She didn't fancy a show down with one of New York's rich, privileged and powerful.

The doorman stood in Olivia's way as she headed towards the elevator. Even when she flashed her badge he wouldn't budge.

"Excuse me sir, this is police business."

He retained his position. "And whom would you be wanting to visit ma'am?"

Olivia's eyes narrowed. "It's Detective Benson actually, and this is…"

"Charlotte Van Horne," he exclaimed, his eyes lighting up as he saw the young woman standing behind her. "It's been a long time, what can I do for you?"

Charlotte flashed her own badge at him, "Roy, it's been too long. Here for business not pleasure though, my partner and I need to speak to Mr Tanner. Is he in?"

"Sure is Detective, do you want me to let him know you're on your way?"

"No thanks Roy, we've got it from here."

He finally stepped aside to let them pass. As the elevator doors closed Olivia turned to her partner and said, "God, is it always like this with these people?"

Charlotte had the good grace to look embarrassed. "Most of the doormen in these buildings take their job seriously. The residents demand a high class service and they tip a scandalous amount at the holidays. Money solves everything in this neighbourhood."

Olivia rolled her eyes. She had never been a fan of the Upper East Side mentality, probably because she had grown up in Manhattan, and had always been looked down on by the trust fund babies and their staff. The doors pinged open and they stepped into a foyer that would not look out of place in a palace. There was a grand marble staircase and ginormous pillars, statutes that were worth several hundred thousand dollars each and exquisite antique furniture. They were startled by a self-important voice calling down the stairs, "hey Barbie, long time no see. The way your mother tells it you have practically fallen off the face of the earth. Won't you come in for a drink, we have so much to catch up on."

Charlotte visibly bristled at the sound of his voice and pulled her badge from her belt to show him. "It's Detective Barbie actually," she said, not bothering to try and keep the irritation from her voice, "and I'm here for work, not to socialise." God she hated this man, he was such an arrogant ass.

He leaned in to give her a kiss, but she turned her head so that his lips only brushed her cheek and then took a step back, folding her arms across her chest as she could see him looking her up and down.

"Who's the other broad," he asked, nodding towards Olivia, looking more than a little annoyed at Charlotte's rejection of his advances.

"Detective Benson," Olivia replied frostily, extending her hand to Nate, who shook it firmly.

"So what can I do for two of NYPD's finest," he enquired, flashing what he clearly thought was a charming smile, but only made the two detectives want to punch him in the face. Charlotte even rolled her eyes and fought to keep in a grunt of irritation.

"We want to ask you about when you were at the Underground Klub on Monday night."

"I wasn't," Nate shot back, obviously thinking that he could lie and the two detectives would accept his word unquestioningly.

"We have your name on a witness statement and the officers took your details from your driver's licence."

Looking unabashed Nate attempted to cover his untruth, "oh that's right, so I was. Have to say you were looking particularly lovely Barbie. Nice moves."

Supressing the urge to slap him Charlotte snapped, "a girl was attacked. See anything?"

A smirk appeared on his face, "ah yes. How is Blair?"

Olivia took over, "we didn't tell you her name. What makes you think she was involved?"

"News travels fast around here," Nate scoffed, looking at Charlotte. "You of all people know that."

"Did you see anything," Olivia asked snappily, pissed at his attempts to goad her partner.

Nate shook his head. "I didn't even see Blair there. It's not our kind of place you know."

"Then why were you there?"

Nate's cool and calm exterior faltered for a moment, but he quickly regained his composure, but not before making a note that he wanted to make sure both of these detectives understood that he was better than the treatment they were affording him. "You know, this is starting to sound like an interrogation and if you want to ask me anymore questions I really think I should have a lawyer present."

"But if you didn't do anything then why would you need counsel? This is just a friendly chat to try and establish who attacked a young woman."

"Well, it doesn't feel so friendly. I thought better of you Barbie, you of all people can't treat me like this. Being a working girl doesn't become you, maybe you should stick to what you are good at."

Charlotte took a step forward and said in a dangerously low voice, "we expect you and your suit to be at our precinct by nine tomorrow morning. Otherwise I'll storm into your office and haul you down there myself."

She spun on her heel and stormed away from him, seething that he had compared her to a prostitute. He was one of the only people who could provoke such a reaction in her, and she thanked the Lord that she had been blessed with the self-control to withstand his provocations. Olivia herself had been having a hard time controlling herself as he pushed her partner's buttons and she could tell that Nate didn't like being dressed down by two women. The way he had looked at Charlotte and herself had made her uneasy, like they were pieces of meat, or new toys for him to do with what he willed. However she knew that whatever he threw at them they could easily handle whatever the pretentious Mr Tanner.


	5. Chapter 5

"Barbie," Benson asked as they got back into the Sedan.

Charlotte took a deep breath, "nickname he came up for me. Unfortunately it caught on with some of his wise ass friends."

Olivia sensed that there was more to this but didn't press the matter. She didn't blame her partner for not liking the man, she hadn't exactly taken to him either. As Olivia pulled up outside the precinct however, she was painfully aware that her partner had not said two words to her on the way back, making the drive very long and dull. In silence they made their way to the squad room, where Amaro and Rollins were having a discussion in low voices. Not low enough.

"Who do you think she is sleeping with to have made Detective so quickly," Amaro asked.

"Come on, did you see her clothes? More like Daddy made a donation," Amanda responded with more than a hint of disdain in her voice.

"You think she's just one of those Park Avenue Princesses?"

"Yeah she's just trying to kid herself that she's not another spoil brat by having a 'real' job."

Charlotte listened, her expression unreadable. In fact her composure did not slip in the slightest as she strutted into the squad room and returned to her desk. Seconds after she had sat down she rose and went to the coffee pot, Fin following her. "You've gotta ignore them," he said quietly, "they aren't usually like this."

"Don't worry, I'm tougher than I look. I had to survive twelve months of this in homicide so I'm used to it."

Fin put a hand on her shoulder giving it a little squeeze as she lifted her coffee mug to her lips. It took all of her strength to keep the acrid liquid down, this coffee was far worse than they had in homicide. Focussing on trying to digest the rancid liquid gave her something else to think about, rather than letting her fellow detective's words upset her.

Before she had time to register anything else she was stunned to see Blair storming into the room, closely followed by Mrs Williams. The two women had thunderous looks on their faces and before Charlotte could greet either one of them Blair had slapped her hard across the face. Olivia and Fin both jumped to stand behind Charlotte, she had motioned to them that she was fine, although had been unable to keep the expression of sheer shock from her face.

"How could you," Blair shouted.

Charlotte's expression changed from one of shock to confusion.

"You interrogated Nate? You treated him like a common criminal?"

"We followed a line of enquiry. He was at the club and we asked him what he saw. He was less than forthcoming by the way."

"Well he called. Said that a cousin of his that works at the Ledger told him that my attack is going to be in the paper tomorrow. What did you tell him? You said this wouldn't be made public."

"That wasn't us. We don't release details of rape victims. By law you should be protected."

"I don't feel protected," Blair shrieked, looking as though she was going to hit Charlotte again, at which point Olivia stepped forward and restrained the young woman.

"Calm down before I write you up for assaulting a cop," she said evenly.

"It's ok, let her go. Now, let's get one thing straight. Your assault being made public is not down to us. Your name was not mentioned when we asked our questions. Nate asked _us_ if it was you and we did not confirm. But he was at the scene at the time of your attack and we hoped that a friend of yours might be able to shed some light on the events of that night."

Mrs Williams took a step forward, "that's all very well _detective_ but the situation is rather delicate. There are numerous reputations involved and no one wants this to turn into a witch hunt. Some things are better to remain private."

Olivia intervened at this stage, "I'm afraid I don't understand you ma'am. Are you telling me that you believe that the assault should never have been reported, or that your reputation is more important than finding this young girl's rapist?"

Serena Williams' voice grew tense, "It was not my intention to give you the impression that I am unsympathetic. But we would prefer that you kept our friends out of your investigations. There is no need for them to be involved. And frankly Charlotte I am astounded you went along with this."

Charlotte squared up to Mrs Williams, looking defiant, "questioning him was my idea. I was mistaken in the belief that he would value his friend more than his family name. And we have every intention of dealing with the matter discretely. Without obstruction," she said coldly.

Both Mrs Williams and Blair were lost for words. Blair tugged on her mother's arm and they flounced from the room. The detectives could swear that the temperature rose ten degrees following their departure.

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The detectives went out for a drink after their shift. God knows they needed it after their run ins with the privileged and spoiled. Amaro and Rollins left after one, making their excuses, but really not wanting to spend time with the new girl. Olivia was called away not long after, Noah was being fussy and wanting his Mom. This left Charlotte with Fin.

"Beer," Fin joked as the bar tender placed a bottle in front of her, "I would have had you down as a champagne girl."

As if to prove him wrong Charlotte took a large gulp of the amber liquid and replied, "well you know even us Park Avenue Princesses have to mix it up sometime."

Fin looked mortified, "Charlotte, I didn't mean…"

Charlotte smiled, "it's ok. And call me Charley, Charlotte always sounds so posh and stuffy."

Fin chuckled, "trying to distance yourself from that world?"

"Let's just say that they think my profession is unbecoming of a 'lady'. But I've been disappointing them all for years so why stop now?"

Fin could tell that there was more to the story but didn't pry. He understood just as well as the next person how it felt when the people you loved didn't give you the support you needed. He also knew what it felt like to disappoint those you love. His divorce was just another reminder of both of those things, and while he had been divorced for years, sometimes it felt as raw as if it was yesterday. "I've been there kid. But eventually you stop caring."

"Fin, I stopped caring years ago," Charlotte said with a wry smile.

They clinked their bottled together and drank in silence for a few moments. Once the awkwardness passed they settled into an easy conversation, establishing various things about each other. They were laughing and joking when Charlotte's phone buzzed.

"Van Horne," she answered, rising from the table to find a quiet corridor where she could hear better. "What? You've got to be kidding? Dammit. No, not you. Don't worry. Alicia calm down… Stop… Alicia… Relax… Al… I'll be right there."

She hurried back to the table, grabbed her jacket, made her apologies to Fin and headed for the door. She climbed into the back of a cab which had stopped to let off passengers and gave him her address. As he pulled up outside her building she handed him a fifty, and without waiting for her change she all but ran into her apartment block. When she arrived in her home she immediately saw Blair throwing her possessions on the floor. Alicia, her housekeeper was standing at the opposite end of the room looking terrified. Charlotte knew that she was not scared of Blair as such, god knew that Alicia had dealt with pretty much every emotion Blair possessed at some point, but she was worried for the woman standing in front of her.

As soon as Alicia saw Charlotte enter the room she ran to her and in a torrent explained that Blair had stormed in, demanding to see her, and when Alicia had informed her that she wasn't there she had started breaking things, screaming that Charlotte had ruined her life. Charlotte took a deep breath and slowly advanced towards her friend, who was now holding a crystal vase that had cost her $1,000 not one month earlier. She held her arms outstretched, wanting Blair to see that she did not intend her any harm, she didn't know what sort of mental state she was in.

"B," she almost whispered, "it's Char. Alicia said that you wanted to see me. I'm here honey, I'm here now. Put the vase down, we can talk."

That last sentence resulted in Blair launching the vase towards Charlotte, and it hit the floor sending glass everywhere. One of the pieces bounced and hit her in the arm and another caught her cheek, and several others leaving miniscule scratches on her arms. Blair was sobbing, screaming, looking wildly around for something else to vent her anger on. Charlotte moved quickly and wrapped her arms around the girl, holding her tight and allowing her to sob into her shoulder for the third night in a row.


	6. Chapter 6

The rest of the detectives were stunned when Charlotte filled them in on the previous night's events. They were more than a little worried when they noticed the scratch on her face and the further scratches on her arms. Olivia was trying to persuade Charlotte to call Blair in so that they could address her actions, she could not continue to have violent outbursts, especially if they would be like the one the previous night, which could have been much worse than it was.

They were interrupted by Lieutenant Murphy approaching their desks. "Benson, Van Horne, we've got another victim. Sounds like your club guy. He attacked a woman in a bar in Manhattan. She's pretty banged up, she's in Mercy Gen. Get down there."

Grabbing their coats they headed out of the squad room. Charlotte got behind the wheel of the Sedan and pulled out at an alarming speed. Olivia almost clasped onto the grab handle on the door and Charlotte, realising that she had been a bit heavy handed on the gas flashed her an apologetic look, easing up slightly. Her mind was completely elsewhere. As they pulled in at the hospital they jumped out and entered the emergency department, which as usual was a frantic flurry of people rushing along the corridors. They struggled to attract the attention of a nurse in order to establish which room their victim was in, and when they finally did they had to fight through a crowd of medical staff, paparazzi and civilians to be able to get to the door. A security guard barred their entrance, but when they flashed their badges he stepped aside, opening the door for them to enter the room. Both detectives were disconcerted, unaware as to why there was such a fuss. This confusion was resolved when they saw the woman lying on the bed in front of them.

Sapphire.

The detectives shared a look, and then, suddenly remembering the crowd of vultures outside Olivia rushed to lower the blinds so that their view through the window into the room was obscured. Charlotte followed suit with the window on the door. A groan from the woman on the bed attracted their attention back towards her, and the detectives cautiously approached, hoping not to startle her. She was beginning to regain consciousness and Charlotte reached forward and took her hand saying, "my name is Detective Van Horne and this is Detective Benson, we're here to find out who did this to you."

The girl coughed and proceeded to vomit, Charlotte only just managed to get a basin to her in time. Olivia, surprised by her colleague's quick reflexes stood back and watched. Charlotte gently held Sapphire's hair back until she had finished and handed her a handkerchief so she could clean her face a little.

"Oh my God, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," Sapphire sobbed, mortified.

"Don't worry about it," Charlotte said kindly, placing a hand on her shoulder, "you have nothing to be sorry about, none of this is your fault."

The woman threw her arms around Charlotte's waist and burst into tears. Olivia approached the two women and whispered in Charlotte's ear, "we need to try and get a doctor in here. And get rid of the circus outside. I'll call Rollins and Fin, they can help out."

Charlotte nodded in agreement, her arms still around Sapphire, consoling her as she sobbed into her chest. She was struggling to keep it together, she wasn't sure she could handle working in the SVU any longer. Her sleep deprivation was kicking in and she wanted nothing more than to cry, for this woman and for Blair, cry for everything they had suffered.

Olivia saw her partner's distress and said in a low voice, "do you need a minute?"

Charlotte composed herself and shook her head. Whatever she was feeling, this young woman was feeling a million times worse and she needed her. She could survive this, at least for today and do what she needed to do.

A ruckus started up outside as the press became more intent on getting a picture or a comment from the famous victim. Sapphire jumped at the noise and began to shake. Charlotte released her hold on the girl and proceeded to the door, pulling it open and glaring at the animals looking intently back at her.

Flashing her badge at the crowd she said in a loud voice, "Detective Charlotte Van Horne, I'm going to have to ask you to leave. All of you. Have some respect for those in here who are injured and sick. If you must hang around you can wait at the entrance, but if you obstruct the EMTs or anyone coming in or leaving, I promise that I will have you removed from there too." She beckoned to the uniformed officers who were loitering down the corridor. "Will you escort these vultures, sorry I mean journalists, out of here please? And make sure they don't get back in."

The uniformed officers began to herd the reporters and photographers from the building, to protests of freedom of the press and abuse of power. Charlotte didn't care. She just turned on her heel and re-entered the room. She was disgusted that the feeding frenzy had begun, mere hours after a young woman had been brutally assaulted and violated. She was aware that she was probably going to get her ass handed to her by her CO, but she didn't give a damn.

Once the rape kit had been completed, once again Charlotte had to hold their victim's hand throughout the procedure. Olivia, waiting outside the curtain accepted every piece of evidence that was passed to her, placing each into an evidence bag. When the doctor left the room they began their interview.

"I was getting ready to perform my set and I was nervous. I had had a couple of drinks to calm my nerves, but I started to feel woozy. It was so busy backstage, there were some people that I didn't recognise. A guy I had never seen before tried to flirt with me, but I wasn't interested. He came across as arrogant and self-important so I knocked him back. I went to my dressing room, had a drink of water and I still felt strange, like I couldn't focus. I may have passed out for a second, because the next thing I remember was this guy, dressed in black and wearing a ski mask standing behind me, staring at me in the mirror. I started to scream but he pulled me up by my hair and forced his hand over my mouth. He said 'scream and you die.' He threw me on the floor and started to kick me. The wind was knocked out of me, I couldn't scream even if I wasn't too scared to. Every time I tried to get up he kicked me back down and eventually I gave up. Suddenly it stopped and I just lay there for a few moments, praying that he had gone. I just about managed to pull myself to my feet and then he slammed me against the wall and put a knife to my throat. When he felt me struggle he pushed the knife harder to my neck and cut me a little bit. When I felt the blood I froze, I thought he was going to kill me. But… but… but then he kissed me, and his hands were running up and down, pushing my top up… f… feeling my b… breasts. His whole body was pressing me up to the wall, and then… then… then he was inside me. I cried, begged and pleaded with him to stop but he didn't he just laughed. Finally, when he stopped he grabbed my face and made me look into his eyes. He pressed his arm across my throat and I couldn't breathe. I almost willed myself to pass out, wished that he would kill me. He just kissed me one last time, he used the knife to cut my breast and then let me fall to the ground. I don't remember anything after that until I woke up here."

Olivia sighed, it was more than likely that this was the same guy.

"Do you remember anything about him? Height? Eye colour? Marks?"

Sapphire closed her eyes and thought for a minute. "He… was… 6'2, maybe 6'4. White. Green eyes. And… he… had a tattoo of a snake on his right forearm."

Definitely the same guy.

"Could you describe the man who came onto you? And can we have the names of all your backstage personnel? We'll need to talk to them. And those for your support act."

Sapphire reached for her iPhone, handing it to Olivia, telling her that all the names and numbers of her staff were in there. "My support act is a girl called Maddie. She was meant to open for me tonight as well. Oh God, I'm going to have to cancel the show. What will I tell everyone?"

"Let us worry about that Sapphire," Charlotte said.

"Call me Chelsea detective. Sapphire is just my stage name. My real name is Chelsea Ealing. I don't feel much like being Sapphire right now."

"Ok Chelsea, but only if you call me Charley. And this is Olivia."

Chelsea looked at Charlotte as though she was seeing her for the first time. "Wait, I recognise you. You were at my show three nights ago. You were one of Maddie's dancers. When that girl was assaulted."

Charlotte nodded. "I'm so sorry this happened to you. Once you are feeling up to it if you could come by the precinct to answer a few more questions that would be great." She handed Chelsea her card. "And if you need anything at all, please call me. Anytime."

The two detectives left. Once out in the hall they could hear the rabble that was still waiting outside of the entrance to the emergency room. "There goes rape shield," Olivia muttered as she pulled her ringing phone from her pocket. "Benson. Yeah… We're still at the hospital… Yeah… Just finished the interview… We're heading back now… Put him in an interview room and tell him we are on our way… Thanks Rollins." She ended the call and turned to Charlotte. "Your friend Nate just showed up at the precinct with his lawyer."

Charlotte rolled her eyes, she was not looking forward to round two with this man, even less so because he had back up this time. Arriving back at the precinct they were about to go to the interview room when they were stopped by Amaro.

"Just thought you should know that we have your little buddy on security camera at Sapphire's show as well, talking to her not long before she was attacked and hanging around outside her dressing room."

The detectives looked at the still images Amaro had just presented them, gave their thanks and continued towards the room their suspect was in. "Mr Tanner can we get you anything? Tea, coffee, water? Mr Petrovsky?" Charlotte asked, with a smile. They both declined and the two women sat down opposite them.

"Can we just get this farce over and done with? My client has done nothing wrong."

Olivia and Charlotte shared a look but Charlotte continued, "no one is implying that he did, but he is a material witness to a serious crime."

Nate cleared his throat, "actually Barbie I believe that you were making all kinds of implications yesterday when you came storming into my home."

Olivia jumped in, "we just wanted to talk about what you saw. You were being defensive and normally that only means one thing."

Nate opened his mouth to retort, but his lawyer silenced him with a look. "Well let's try again, shall we?"

"What time did you arrive at the Underground Klub?"

"Around nine. I was surprised to see you there Barbie. But you looked good none the less. Forgot you could dance like that."

Charlotte once again found herself having to resist the urge to punch him in his smug face, but didn't say anything.

Nate rolled out a blow by blow of what he had done that night, watched the dancers, went to the bar, chatted to Blair for a while, went back to the bar, watched the support act and the dancers some more and so on. Nothing that involved him being anywhere near where Blair was attacked,

"And you didn't see anyone around the restrooms?"

"Wasn't anywhere near them."

Olivia scoffed and threw one of the photographs across the table at him and his lawyer, "you see we find that hard to believe as we have you hovering around that area just minutes before we believe the girl was attacked. CCTV doesn't lie."

Mr Petrovsky looked at his client questioningly. The detectives didn't miss this look, and registered that Nate obviously had told his lawyer that he was nowhere near where the girl had been found. Nate glared at the two detectives. "Fine I was there, but the only people I saw were the ones that I usually try to avoid interacting with. Come on Barbie, you saw the people that were there."

"Let's talk about when you were at the Indigo Club last night."

"I wasn't."

"Wrong again," Olivia stated thrusting another picture at him.

Nate was getting angrier by the minute. "ok, I was there too. Maddie got me backstage."

"And you tried it on with Sapphire."

"Yeah she seemed kind of into it."

Charlotte and Olivia gave a laugh, "that's not what she told us," Olivia said while Charlotte smirked.

"The bitch thought she was better than me. Nerve. Like she didn't know who I was."

"You sound kind of angry about that," Charlotte said, still smirking.

"Wouldn't you. Someone looks through you as though you are nothing? I snap my fingers and girls come running, and that bitch turns me down?"

Olivia looked at Charlotte, "sounds like a motive for rape to me."

Charlotte nodded in agreement. Nate was seething and sensing trouble Mr Petrovksy stood up, indicating Nate do the same, "either charge my client or we're done here."

Olivia looked at Nate, "by all means leave Mr Tanner, but we'll be seeing you again very soon."

When he was at the door Nate turned back and said to Charlotte, "you know Barbie, I wouldn't have expected this treatment from you. But I have to admit you look hot when you're angry. Call me some time."

Fire flashed across Charlotte's eyes, and seeing that the entire squad room was watching she replied loudly, "not even if you were the last man alive Mr Tanner."

Nate's face was thunderous as his lawyer led him towards the elevator. Those bitches had humiliated him and had disrespected him. They had to pay.


	7. Chapter 7 - Danger!

The detectives entered the Medical Examiner's office having received a request from Melinda Warner.

"Hey Melinda, this is Detective Charlotte Van Horne, our new recruit. What you got for us?"

Melinda reached over and shook Charlotte's hand, smiled and said, "wow you guys make detective younger and younger these days. Either that or I'm getting old."

Charlotte smiled a little stiffly, "you said you had something interesting for us?"

Melinda glanced at Olivia who smiled encouragingly. Melinda cleared her throat, "right well, no hits on the system, but your perp has a low sperm count and has had a recent bout of chlamydia."

Charlotte's eyes widened. "How recent?"

Both Olivia and Melinda looked at her with interest before Melinda answered, "within the last eight weeks."

Charlotte paled slightly, "anything else?"

"The sample is not what you would usually expect, the low sperm count could mean one of a few things; he could be infertile or have a 'performance' related condition; he could have had a vasectomy; or be pre-pubescent."

Olivia looked at her friend. "So you're telling us that our rapist could be an older man?"

"It's a possibility, but I'd be more inclined to think that he is younger and just has a medical condition or has had the snip."

Olivia nodded. Charlotte had remained silent through this last exchange. She looked as though she was in a world of her own and only responded when the two women left the morgue and Olivia asked, "so when did you sleep with our suspect?"

Charlotte opened her mouth and then shut it again. Eventually she responded, "about three months ago."

"Is that why there is some tension?"

"Believe it or not no. I couldn't care less about that, in fact I'm the one who made it clear that it would never happen again. He's just a jackass."

"You looked worried when Melinda mentioned about his STI."

"Just couldn't believe I was so stupid. I'm not usually careless."

"You didn't use protection?"

"Oh we used protection. But I knew what he was like and I still did it anyway."

"You realise that as Nate is pretty much our prime suspect you'll have to declare your prior relationship to Murphy? Just in case the defence makes something of it."

Charlotte sighed, "three days on the job and I'm not making a great impression huh?"

"How do you mean?"

"Well I'm the Park Avenue Princess, rubbing Amaro and Rollins up the wrong way, and well you have met two of my previous sexual partners already, and I'm about to declare my sex life to the entire squad."

Olivia put her hand on her partner's shoulder, "don't worry about it. Amaro and Rollins are far from perfect. You're entitled to a private life, you couldn't have known that any of your friends would be involved in case that you had to work. I mean what are the chances that someone like Nathanial Tanner would hang around Manhattan? You're doing a good job rookie, you're good with the victims and you know how to talk to people."

Charlotte gave her a small smile. She appreciated the words, but she didn't believe them. For someone who had lived the charmed life she had a low opinion of herself. But what made her feel worse was that she didn't think that she had any right to. She was expected to be this confident, rich, outgoing bitch, however in reality she never truly believed that she belonged to the world she had been born into. She just played her part well. But no one knew the pain and emptiness she felt every day.

Back at the station house Charlotte felt like she was in the headmaster's office as she sat across from Lieutenant Murphy. EADA Raphael Barba was also present and was looking at the new detective with great interest. Olivia was in the chair next to her, appreciating how hard this conversation would be for her colleague. No one wanted their sexual history to be paraded in front of their co-workers, especially not when they hadn't even been in the job for a week. And no one expected their sexual partners to come back and haunt them.

"So you're telling me that you've been in a relationship with our suspect," Murphy asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Define relationship," Charlotte said in a small voice.

"You've been with him?"

Charlotte sighed, "I've slept with him, yes."

"Recently?"

"Three months ago."

Barba scoffed, "this just gets better and better."

Charlotte cast him a glance and Olivia rose to face him.

"Give her a break Barba."

"One of our lead detectives on this case, not only is friends with one of the victims, but now has had a one night stand with our main suspect and I'm meant to be ok with this?"

"If I'd known he was a rapist I wouldn't have slept with him."

"This totally messes up our case. She has to be pulled. Otherwise the defence will go to town."

Charlotte nodded but Olivia protested. "She has done pretty much all of the work on this case. She has a relationship with both of our victims, she knows how to handle the suspect, she made the connection that lead us to Tanner in the first place and she is the reason that we have any leads at all due to her quick action at the crime scene. And you want her off the case?"

"With all due respect Liv, her relationships are precisely the issue. I don't dispute that she has done good work on this case, but the defence will make anything that she does concerning Nathanial Tanner into some kind of vendetta because he didn't call her back."

Charlotte stood up, "excuse me? Vendetta? I must not have heard you right councillor because I'm sure you know better than to make assumptions without knowing the facts."

Barba had the good grace to look embarrassed, "I didn't mean… Look, whether that was the case or not his defence lawyer will make that the case. They'll make you seem like the scorned woman, who was pissed because they slept with you and used you. It could be damaging for the case."

"Fine. But for the record, he didn't use me. It was something that happened after a few drinks, I was a little drunk and then I told him it would never happen again. But I will not have you look down on me when a) I had no idea he was a potential felon, b) this night occurred before I began working in the unit and c) because I had casual sex and didn't instantly assume I was dating the guy I slept with. I'm a big girl councillor and it should not be any of your business who I have sex with."

Murphy stepped in as he could see Barba was about to retort, "what do we do here councillor?"

Barba considered for a moment, and then said, "Benson is the lead detective on this. She makes the decisions. It's not the end of the world, and you've disclosed to me and your CO before this investigation has become too serious."

Barba made to leave but when he was at the door he turned back, "detective?" Charlotte turned to look at him. "No more surprises please."

Charlotte nodded. She was relieved that Barba was not calling her professionalism into question, but was also aware that she now had to watch her step on the case. She didn't want things to become more complicated than they already were.

SVUSVUSVUSVUSVUSVUSVUSVUSVUSVUSVUSVUSVUSVUSVUSVUSVUSVU

Charlotte was almost home when she had the feeling that someone was following her. She turned and walked down a different street to the one her apartment building was on to try and shake of the person she thought was tailing her. She kept walking and walking, finding herself on a deserted side street. Suddenly she noticed a man approaching her, wearing dark clothes and a hoodie that hid his face. Charlotte instinctively placed a hand on her gun, ready to draw it if the situation arose. The man kept advancing towards her, and she noticed another couple of men standing across the street, also both wearing hoodies. Finally the man who had been advancing towards her was feet away, and stood blocking her path. He moved as though to pull a weapon on her but she had pulled her gun before he succeeded.

"Move," she said with authority, "this is a bad idea buddy, I'm a cop."

"I know who you are bitch."

"I don't know what you think you are doing here, but trust me this isn't a good idea. Think about what you're doing."

Suddenly a hand from behind her snaked around her neck and a knife was pressed to her throat.

"We've thought about it Charlotte," hissed a voice in her ear, and she tried not be repulsed by the sensation of his breath on her skin. "Scream and you die."


	8. Chapter 8

Fully aware of her predicament she refused to show them any fear. Looking across at the two men who were standing across the street she came to the realisation that they weren't going to help her.

"Give him your gun," the one holding the knife to her throat growled in her ear, "otherwise I'll slit your pretty neck."

Charlotte didn't move. This made the man holding her press the knife harder into her throat, and felt it nick the skin, leaving a small trail of blood to slither down her neck. Reluctantly she relaxed her grip on her weapon, and the other man snatched it from her before pointing it at her head. She took a shallow breath, as anything more meant that the blade of the knife dug painfully into her skin. Twisting his hand into her hair, the man holding her pulled her head back, exposing her throat further and pulled her into a nearby alley. The other man followed, and then a few seconds later the two men who had been standing across the street joined them. Being outnumbered four to one wasn't a situation that Charlotte had ever dreamed she would find herself in and she had to force herself not to panic as she was pushed further and further down the narrow path. Eventually they reached the end and the man removed his hand from her hair, pushing her roughly into the wall, so hard that her shoulder crashed into it and she had to contain her groan of pain.

"What do you want," she asked, again managing to keep her voice even, not betraying the fact that she was now pretty scared.

"Teach you a lesson, bitch," the one with the gun told her, "its about time you learned your place."

"Think about what you're doing, I'm a cop, harm me and you'll spend the rest of your life in prison."

They just laughed. "You'll never find out who we are. And who's to say that we aren't going to kill you right here?"

Charlotte began to shake slightly. She was completely vulnerable, staring down four men, two of whom were armed, one with her own service weapon. She had little way to defend herself and she couldn't see anyone coming to help her any time soon. She noticed that all four men were wearing ski masks underneath their hoods to hide their faces and this made her feel slightly more confident. If they were planning on killing her, surely they wouldn't bother to hide their faces.

One of the men who had been standing across the street was getting bored of just staring at her and stepped forward, pushing her backwards into the way, gripping her arms as he did. She struggled against his tight hold trying to shake him off, but he was too strong, and his body was sandwiching her body against the wall behind her. Refusing to show that he was hurting her she aimed a kick between his legs in a bid to get him to release her. She hit her target and he let her go, doubling over in pain as he held himself. But as she pushed past him she was faced with her gun, which the assailant held under her chin. She caught a glimpse of his eyes flashing with anger in the dim light and she registered that they were a brilliant sapphire blue.

"Let me go," she said, her voice cracking slightly as she looked at him pleadingly.

This was met with another laugh from the men who were clearly enjoying themselves, enjoying her fear and the fact that she was completely helpless. Flinching from the feel of the cold metal against her jaw bone she gasped when her attacker grabbed her arm, his nails digging into her soft flesh as he gripped her far tighter than was necessary. Again she struggled, trying to wrench her arm free, but the one whose family jewels she had just rearranged had recovered and twisted his hand in her long hair, pulling her back and slamming her back up against the wall, with such force that her head cracked off of the bricks behind her, and she felt a warm trickle of blood down the back of her scalp. He pressed his body harder against hers, so hard that she could feel his erection pushing into her thigh. This heightened her sense of panic, realising his intentions towards her. She tried to fight harder squirming against his hold but he slapped her hard across the face so that her head twisted snapped to the right and once again she hit her head against the rough bricks.

Starting to feel a little dazed she was feeling her strength waning. She felt a rough hand grab her chin and turn her face so that she was forced to look at him. He was glaring at her, with hate filled eyes, such a dark brown that they almost looked black. Then he crashed his lips down onto hers, kissing her aggressively, and she had to fight the urge to throw up as he tried to force his tongue into her mouth. Using his distraction she managed to swing a punch at his face, a punch that was harder than he ever would have expected. He stumbled back a few steps, but this did not stall him for more than a second and he came at her again, growling, "you're going to regret that you stupid whore!"

Doing the only other thing she could think of, to try and get her way out of this, she opened her mouth and screamed, "help me. Please somebody help me."

Once her attacker got over the shock of his victim defying orders he slammed a hand over her mouth, so hard that she felt her nose break. She moaned in pain but the sound was muffled. Her eyes were fearful. The next thing she knew the wind was knocked out of her due to a punch in the gut and she was struggling to breathe. It was no easy task trying to get her breath back with a broken nose and a hand over her mouth so her breathing was shallow. He moved a hand to her back and she was thrust onto the floor, throwing out a hand to break her fall, and she whimpered when she felt her wrist jar. One of the others, who were becoming impatient at just having to stand and watch stomped on her hand with all the strength he could muster and she felt a couple of bones crack. She cried out in pain and cradled her hand to her body, trying to sit herself upright and back away from the men tormenting her.

All too fast she felt the hands of three of the four men on her, pinning her to the cold hard ground, holding her arms, her legs, one hand over her mouth, one pressing the knife back to her throat. The fourth one, the leader she supposed, given that he seemed to be taking control of the situation, stood over her looking down at her as she struggled, but this only resulted in her suffering more pain and she was sure that she felt a shoulder dislocate as she twisted in their grasps. The third man stopped pinning her legs down, straddled her, pinning her legs together with his and punched her over and over in the stomach, and then, when he motioned his associate to remove his hand from her face, punched her several times there. She felt like she had gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson when, through bleary eyes she saw the fourth man place a hand on his friend's shoulder and pull him back. He knelt down and placing his hands on her inner thighs, roughly forced her legs apart, positioning himself in between them, preventing her from clamping them closed again. She began to cry out into the hand covering her mouth and a single tear began to trickle down her cheek, betraying the desperation she felt. He ran his hands up her trembling body, feeling her hips, her waist and then finding her breasts.

"No," she screamed and once again her cries were muffled.

She writhed and bucked against his touch but this only made him more aroused, and to show her he pressed his crotch into her and once again she felt his erection against her thigh. He ripped her thin corset style top all the way up the middle, exposing her deep purple laced bra and once again his hands found her breasts, squeezing them and abusing them. She tried to turn away, ignoring the pain in her shoulder, but her arms were pinned too tightly to the ground so she had no room to move. His hands then snaked their way down to her jeans, he forced one roughly inside so as to cup her core. Finally, deciding that he couldn't wait any longer he pulled his hand out, but only to undo the buttons of her pants and attempt to pull them down her hips. This made her fighting spirit reawaken, and she bit down hard on the hand covering her mouth.

She heard the man grunt, "that little bitch," but she didn't pause to think as she once again screamed at the top of her lungs, praying that someone would hear her this time.

She was relieved to hear footsteps, of what sounded like two people and she kept screaming. Startled by the sounds of people approaching them all four men released her, jumped to their feet and sprinted from the alley, almost knocking down the people coming towards them. She heard her service weapon hit the ground as the bastard who had taken it from her threw it to the ground. Charlotte lay groaning, her broken hand held against her chest, her other hand holding her side, blood trickling down her face.

"Oh my God," one of the men exclaimed when they found Charlotte, bruised, bleeding and with her clothes ripped on the concrete. "Call an ambulance."

The second man pulled his cell phone from his pocket, while the other knelt down beside Charlotte, saying softly, "it's ok miss, help is on the way."

Charlotte just groaned again, barely able to register what he had said, she was just able to recognise that he didn't mean her any harm. What felt like an hour, but had in fact only been a few minutes passed and before sirens could be heard in the distance. The EMTs rushed up the alley accompanied by the second man who had gone to fetch them. At this point she was just thinking clearly enough to have them pick up her gun and place it in a plastic bag so as to preserve the prints before allowing them to quickly transfer her onto a stretcher and carry her to the ambulance. The man who had stayed by her side made to climb in after the technician but he looked at him as if to say not a chance in hell.

"I just need to know that she'll be ok," he said.

"Is it ok if he rides with us miss," the technician asked Charlotte gently.

She nodded weakly, she didn't fancy being on her own, and this man had saved her, so deserved to know how she was. Before climbing in he turned to the other, kissed him and said, "meet us at the hospital ok?"

The man, who she had only just registered was Latino nodded and squeezed his partner's hand. When her saviour sat down she reached for his hand and looked into his eyes. She tried to speak, but was shushed by the technician who set about trying to make her comfortable.

Once they arrived at the hospital she was rushed into a treatment room for her injuries to be examined. She had been right about the fact that her hand was broken, the bastard who had stomped on it had crushed two of the bones. Additionally she had a few cracked ribs, her shoulder had been dislocated, she had a large gash on the back of her head, her nose was broken, she had scratches on her cheek and forehead and she had bruises and small cuts up and down her body. The doctor had tried to insist upon a rape kit, but she assured her that it was not necessary, they had been frightened off before they could. Her saviour entered her room with a knock when the doctor had left and asked how she was feeling.

"Is there anyone I can call for you," he asked gently, taking her hand. She shook her head. "Come on now there must be someone, a parent, a friend…"

She thrust her cell phone at him, "can you call Timothy please? He's a friend."

He searched through the contacts, first coming across the name Amanda Rollins, which he passed over as a coincidence and then saw Nick Amaro, Odafin Tutuola and Olivia Benson before he reached Timothy's number. He looked at her, and asked, "are you a cop?"

She looked stunned and nodded, giving him a questioning glance.

"It's just, you have my dad's name in your phone."

Charlotte looked at him pleadingly. "Don't call him, please. I don't want them to know just yet."

He just nodded and left the room to call her friend. Once he finished the call, however, he pulled his own cell phone from his pocket and made a call. "Dad? It's Ken. I need your help. Can you call Olivia?"

When he re-entered the room Charlotte was breathing a bit easier and she looked to be in less pain, meaning that her medication was kicking in. She looked exhausted and there was a dead look in her eyes, and Ken could tell that the reality of what had just happened to her was beginning to sink in. She looked at him as he walked back towards her bed and said, "you jumped into a dangerous situation to save me and I don't even know your name."

Ken smiled and told her. "Did you know those guys?"

She shook her head, but that made it hurt at which she grimaced, and seeing her pain Ken took her right hand. She began to cry, although she tried hard to prevent the tears from falling. At this Ken wrapped an arm around her, allowing her to cry into his chest, just holding her as she did. She managed to compose herself, but jumped when she heard the door of her room open once more, although she relaxed when she saw it was Ken's partner. Looking him straight in the eyes she said, "you have a wonderful boyfriend."

Alejandro smiled and responded, "yes I do. How are you feeling?"

Charlotte gave him a half smile, half grimace, "I'll live."

The three were making small talk as Charlotte had refused point blank to discuss her assault when she noticed three people looking through the window of her hospital room and her face darkened.

Glaring at Ken she said in a dangerously low voice, "I told you not to call them."


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: Apologies for the delay in updating, I've had a busy few weeks. Enjoy :)**

Ken looked at the floor. He knew that Charlotte had said that she didn't want his father there, but he knew that she needed him and Olivia, now more than ever. Those bastards had brutally attacked her and if he hadn't been passing, well it didn't bear thinking about. His father, in a rare conversation they had shared about his job, had once told him that there was nothing he could do until the victim was ready to come forward. But it had been Ken's experience that sometimes people just needed a little push. Charlotte's expression was mutinous however, and as she glared at him she almost spat at him, "get out."

Both Alejandro and Ken looked stunned for a moment not sure if they had heard her right. But when they didn't move she said louder, "did I stutter? I said get out!"

Ken jumped to his feet to leave the room and Alejandro followed quickly behind him. Out in the hallway Fin and Olivia both asked, "what happened?"

He looked sadly through the window and explained what he has seen earlier in the evening. Olivia ran a hand through her hair as she listened, feeling the pain that her co-worker was experiencing, she had been in a situation like this a few times before. Fin, on the other hand was looking at his son with pride, "you just dived in when you heard her scream?"

"Of course I did Dad, if I hadn't they would have raped her and God knows what else. "

Olivia made to enter the room but was stopped by Alejandro saying, "I wouldn't. She was pretty pissed when she realised Ken had called you. She just threw us out."

Olivia just smiled at him and pushed the door open anyway. Once inside she said softly, "Charlotte, are you alright?"

"Why are you here Liv?"

"Ken called us. And he was right to. You shouldn't give him a hard time for that, he was just doing what he thought was right."

Charlotte sighed, knowing that she was right, but she needed to be angry at someone and so he was the easiest target. She was exhausted and she couldn't think of a single area of her body that didn't hurt and she wanted nothing more than to forget what had happened to her earlier that night. She was in a world of her own but snapped out of it when she saw Olivia making to leave the room.

"Where are you going," she asked, trying not to sound bothered.

"I'm going to find a doctor so we can collect evidence. Get you some clean clothes. Then I can take your statement." She made for the door.

"I'm not making one."

Olivia stopped with her hand on the door knob. "What?"

"I'm not making a statement. I just want to go home."

Olivia turned back towards Charlotte and came to stand beside her. "Charley, honey, you need to make a statement. We need to find the pricks who did this to you. They need to be locked up. It'll help you get past this."

"I'm fine."

Olivia saw herself six years prior. She had been determined that she was strong enough to deal with the after effects of her sexual assault herself. She had been wrong.

"Charlotte, I was assaulted six years ago. The man completely overpowered me. He almost…," her voice cracked, "he almost raped me and once he was done with me he intended to kill me. I didn't press charges, I didn't talk about it to anyone. Three months later I was suffering from PTSD, unable to sleep at night, and when I did sleep it was because I had cried myself to sleep. I would have night terrors, flashbacks and it began to affect how I did my job. Please, do this, so we can help you."

Charlotte looked up and saw that the older woman had tears in her eyes. "I can't," she said in a small voice, "I just can't."

"I'll help you. I promise, we'll get through this together."

Charlotte didn't reply, she just sat stony faced, determined that she was going to be fine.

Olivia left and re-joined Fin, Ken, Alejandro and Timothy in the corridor. It transpired that Timothy was one of Blair's older brothers who had always had a soft spot for the young detective and would happily help take her home and get her settled. Fin cast Olivia a glance but was disheartened when she said, "she won't press charges."

"Let me try," Ken said, but Fin put a hand on his shoulder.

"It won't help Ken," he said a little sadly.

Timothy had entered her hospital room unnoticed by the others.

"Hey pretty girl," he said quietly, "you look like hell."

She gave him a small smile.

"Detective Benson said you weren't going to press charges."

Charlotte looked ashamed, "I just can't. I'm not strong enough."

He took her hand. "Yet you're expecting Blair to be strong enough to face her attacker."

"It's not the same thing. She can do this. I can't. I don't need to press charges to get closure. It happened, it was terrible but it's over. I don't need to relive it for the next God knows how long to get past this. I have my reasons for wanting to let this go."

"Reasons that you're not going to share?"

Charlotte shook her head, "you don't need to know. I just can't do this."

"Charley, you're the strongest person I know, and you're certainly the strongest person Blair knows. You need to do this, she needs you to do this and you need to do it for yourself. Please. These bastards deserve to go to prison for a very long time."

Charlotte sighed again, but she nodded. Pointing out her hypocrisy had made her realise that she couldn't expect Blair, or Chelsea for that matter, to press charges when she wouldn't. As a cop it was her duty to protect and serve and that meant getting dangerous criminals off the streets. Therefore she had to do it. Timothy motioned the detectives to enter the room.

"Charley wants to press charges now," he said, before leaving them to it.

They began to take the evidence they needed, fingernail scrapings and so on once Fin returned with a doctor. It just so happened to be Melinda Warner. When Charlotte saw her she just muttered, "I'm not dead yet."

Melinda smiled, "I was on duty covering for another doctor."

They documented all the injuries they could without Charlotte having to undress first, and she was grateful as she was still in a fair amount of pain. Melinda eventually looked at her apologetically. "Charlotte, sweetheart, we need you to remove your clothes now."

Fin took that as his cue to leave. Olivia pulled the drapes on the window to the room so that she had some privacy and then helped her to remove her shirt, what was left of it anyway. There were deep scratches up and down her back from when she had been thrown into the wall and then on the ground. Once these we photographed she had to remove her jeans, no easy task with one arm completely out of action and they saw the angry hand marks on her thighs from when they had been prised apart. Finally she had to remove her undergarments, her attackers had touched these too, and Charlotte was left feeling uncomfortable as Melinda and Olivia continued to make notes of every injury, every bruise, every cut. Finally she was handed a set of hospital scrubs to put on. She accepted them gratefully, even though Olivia had to help her to dress due to her left arm being so badly damaged. She was going to struggle to do things like dress by herself for the next few days, but after that her shoulder should allow her the movement to manage alone.

"You did great Charlotte," Melinda said kindly to her as she scooped up the evidence bags and left the room, informing Fin it was safe to enter again as she left.

The two detectives sat beside Charlotte's bed as they took her statement, listening to her in shock and awe at all their colleague had been through. "He said 'scream and you die'," she told them, in a voice that was devoid of all emotion.

"Wait 'scream and you die'," Olivia asked, to which Charlotte nodded. "Isn't that what Chelsea's attacker said to her?"

A light suddenly went on in Charlotte's head. "You think this was the same guy? But there was four of them this time. Both the other reports said only one assailant."

"The other guys could have been partners, maybe he brought reinforcements because you're a cop."

"The one that was most aggressive towards me, the one that was trying to… rape me, his eyes were blue. Not green," she closed her eyes, "but one of them did have green eyes. I didn't see a tattoo though."

Olivia looked at her, "is there any possibility that Nate could have been one of your attackers?"

Tears filled Charlotte's eyes at the thought. "I don't know, I honestly don't know. Only two of them spoke. The one that… he didn't say anything. He just tried to…"

Fin held the young girl's hand. "It's ok to feel like this baby girl. You've been through one hell of an event."

"I'm fine," she said, regaining her steely strength, her voice sounding stony and detached. Suddenly remembering about her gun she produced the bag and handed it to him. "One of them threatened me with my own gun, there might be prints. I had one of the EMTs pick it up. He was wearing gloves so it should just be my prints and the perps. Now are we done? I just want to go home and sleep."

Olivia nodded, "I'll take you."

"Is Timothy still here," Charlotte asked to which Fin told her he was. "He can take me, its fine."

When she had collected what was left of her possessions and Timothy helped her to her feet she turned to Fin and said, "you have a wonderful son. Can you apologise to him and his fiancé for me? I was very rude earlier and they didn't deserve it. And tell them thanks. If they hadn't done what they did I don't know where I'd be."

Fin simply nodded and watched as Charlotte was helped from the room by her friend. He then turned to Olivia, and said, "we're going to get these bastards. And if it was that guy Nate, I'll wring his neck myself."

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The gang who had attacked Charlotte were sitting in an alley that was used for deliveries to the restaurants across the street from her apartment building when they saw Timothy help her out of a taxi and support her as she walked into her building complex. They smiled at the fact that she looked worse for wear but were annoyed that they had not managed to complete what they had intended to do. However, she had been sufficiently terrorised that they could leave her be for a while. They had their orders, and other targets on their list to attend to. Their boss was satisfied for now, and when they got the word they would be back. Then they would come back and make this bitch pay once and for all.


	10. Chapter 10

Charlotte attracted some strange looks as she walked into the precinct the next day, she looked like something out of a horror movie. Olivia stood up as she saw her walk into the squad room, and was at her side in seconds.

"Charley, what are you doing here? Take some time off. You shouldn't be here right now."

Charlotte gave her a determined look, "Liv, I need to be here. Please, let me do my…"

She didn't get to finish, as Murphy beckoned the two women into his office. "Charlotte, you know I can't let you work after what you've been through. You need to take some time, heal and then we can talk about you coming back."

"Murphy, I'm fine, really. I just need to work. I don't do well when I have time to get inside my own head."

He shook his head. "I'm sorry, I can't. You need time to rest, to deal with what happened. You need to heal both mentally and physically before I can let you come back."

Charlotte sat with a blank look on her face. "Fine. If that's what you've decided, I'll be going now." She rose from her chair with great difficulty and left the office without another word, marching straight past her co-workers and to the elevators. Once out of the building she proceeded to the nearest bar and ordered three shots of tequila. It was her intention to get herself rat arsed drunk.

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Nick was pleased to be back as Olivia's partner, however he was pissed as hell over what had happened to Charlotte. He didn't like people messing with a member of the team. Even if he had treated her like crap. They were headed towards the penthouse of Nathanial Tanner, intending to question him further. But on the way they received a call from Murphy saying that they had a third victim. Nick and Olivia raced to the scene and when they arrived they were immediately ushered under the police tape by a very green looking uniformed officer. He didn't look much more than nineteen so it was quite possible that he had never seen a dead body before, and they were unsurprised to see that he was not looking his best. They entered the bar, which, technically was out with their borough, however, given the similarities in the pattern between their attacks and this one, the local SVU had called them in. A young red haired girl was on the floor of the ladies room, with handprints and a small cut on her neck. Olivia sighed at the picture before her, there was blood and broken glass everywhere. A nice footprint was left in blood, there were fingerprints all over and according to Melinda there was ejaculate left on the victim.

"This can't be ours then, he had the snip," Olivia thought aloud.

"Liv, I said there was ejaculate, not that there was sperm," Melinda said patiently. "It looks just like the other two attacks. I had just hoped never to have to meet one of this bastard's victims."

"Fuck," Olivia exclaimed. She had been hoping that they would catch this guy before he killed someone. Unless this print matched Nate, or his fingerprints were in this room, they still probably wouldn't have enough evidence to arrest him. But maybe enough to compel a DNA sample.

"What was the time of death," Nick asked.

"Between three and four this morning, I think she was closing up when she was attacked."

They collected their evidence and left after Melinda told them when the autopsy would begin. Back at the car Nick asked Olivia, "is Charlotte going to be ok? She looked pretty banged up."

Olivia manage to cover her expression of shock as she responded, "she's strong, she'll get through it, she just needs time."

Nick nodded, "I've been a jerk," he said, "she didn't deserve it."

"Charlotte's tougher than she looks, I'm sure she doesn't hold it against you. I never have," Olivia said with a smile.

Nick knew she was referring to the numerous times he had given her grief about dating Cassidy. The situation had been extremely difficult and there had been fault on both sides, but he had jumped to conclusions as a result of his paranoia, and it turned out he had been wrong. Olivia knew it was just his way of protecting what mattered to him, and that was all his animosity towards Charlotte really was. He was protective of the team and was wary of this new girl.

"You think this Tanner guy attacked her?"

"I wouldn't be surprised, he kept trying to goad her whenever we spoke to him. And he doesn't like hearing the word no. Charlotte humiliated him, so maybe he took out his anger on her.

"Maybe," Nick said thoughtfully, "you know, if he's going after people who have humiliated him you might want to be careful. He can't be happy that you've questioned him twice, and from what I hear you were pretty tough with him and he won't be used to that."

Olivia cast him a glance, "Nick, I can handle myself."

Nick looked genuinely worried, "Charlotte thought that too, but look at her now."

Olivia glared at him, but said nothing. That hit home. Charlotte, while she didn't look very tough, was an extremely capable cop, but there's not much anyone could do when ambushed by four guys, one of whom has a knife to your throat.

Eventually she responded, "I promise I'll be careful."

They entered the impressive building and bypassed Roy by flashing their badges at them, he was less obstructive than he had been on Olivia's first visit. The elevator ride to Nate's apartment was quick and soon they were in the extravagant foyer.

"Mr Tanner," Nick called.

"Who the hell are you and what are you doing here," Nate asked as he thundered down the stairs.

Nick showed his badge and it was only then Nate noticed Olivia standing a couple of steps behind.

"Oh it's you Olivia, where's Barbie? I have to say this partner is a downgrade."

"Where were you last night Mr Tanner," she asked, ignoring his question.

"I was here."

"Alone," Nick inquired.

"Yes, well unless you count yourself being in my dreams Olivia, and I have to say you are a wildcat in the sack."

Olivia rolled her eyes, "well the only way I would ever touch you would be in your dreams Mr Tanner. And you have no one to vouch for your whereabouts last night."

Nate's face clouded over. He was not used to being spoken to in this manner. In fact he was, and that was what made him angry. These women had no right to think that they were better than he was.

"I don't need to explain myself to you," he said angrily, "now please leave. Tell Barbie I said hi."

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They searched through the security cameras to see if they could see Nathanial Tanner on them, to prove that he had not been at home, but they couldn't see him anywhere. Maybe they were completely wrong, maybe it wasn't him. Olivia's gut, however, told her that they had their man, they just needed to prove it.

A CSU tech walked into the squad room. "Hey Olivia," he said, as he approached her desk, "we got a hit on the prints on Detective Van Horne's gun."

"And…," Olivia looked at him expectantly.

"We have one Daryl Valeno. 22." He handed her the report. "Address is Brooklyn."

She called to Nick, "get your coat, we have a lead on one of the bastards who attacked Charley."

It took them almost an hour to get to Valeno's apartment. He wasn't there. His neighbour told them that he had pretty much moved out, and had no idea where he went.

"Dammit," Nick raged as the very unhelpful neighbour slammed his door.

"We don't have enough for a warrant," Olivia said, "there is nothing more we can do."

They heard a noise behind the door of their suspect's apartment. Olivia looked at Nick as she drew her weapon. "Exigent circumstances," she asked.

"Damn straight," Nick said as he kicked the door down, just in time to see their suspect headed out the window and down the fire escape. Nick followed him, while Olivia ran back through the building and out, hoping to catch him before he made it to the street below.

When Olivia and Nick met in the alley he was nowhere to be seen. "You take the street, I'll go down here," Olivia said and she began to search for their suspect. She was almost at the end of alleyway when Valeno crept up behind her and clamped his hand down over her mouth and wrapped his other arm around her torso. She struggled against him but he was surprisingly strong, and she was unable to pull an arm free. He pulled her back deeper into the alley, and through a door that was open into what looked like a storage cellar. Before he could go any further she managed to work an arm loose enough that she could thrust it back into his stomach and he let go of her grunting in pain. She spun around and trained her gun on him, and shouted, "get up and put your hands in the air."

He complied and took a couple of steps towards her, but only so he could rush her and slam her back into the wall. He grabbed the wrist of her gun hand and hit it against the wall until she released it and it landed on the floor with a clatter. He punched her a few times in the ribs and a couple of times in the head. Not willing to go down without a fight she aimed a kick at his gut but he caught her leg and threw her to the ground before he took off running.

Groaning she pulled herself to her feet, grabbed her gun and began after him, only to find that Nick had apprehended him at the mouth of the alley. "Great you got the bastard," she said, glaring at Valeno. Nick noticed that she had a cut on her cheek from his ring when he punched her and around her eye was slightly swollen.

"You alright?"

"Yeah, and he's lucky that it was you who got him and not me," she said as she roughly thrust him into the squad car. "The sooner we get this asshole to an interview room the better."


	11. Chapter 11

Olivia all but threw him into the chair in the interview room as Amaro closed the door behind them. The kid glared back at them.

"So, why did you do it Daryl," Olivia asked, not beating around the bush.

"I don't know what you're talking about lady, you got me mistaken with someone else."

"I don't think so Daryl, you see your fingerprints were found on my colleague's gun, a gun that you took from her before you viciously attacked her."

"I didn't lay a hand on no bitch."

"Your prints say different," Nick chipped in, "your prints on our detective's gun put you in that alley. And you don't start talking you are going down for assaulting a cop with a deadly weapon and attempted rape. Trust me, we're going to make sure you never see the light of day again."

"I didn't do nuthin'."

"You don't seem to be following us. You see we know that you were one of the men who assaulted her. We have proof. But there were three other men in that alley. Give us their names and we can think about sorting you out a deal. Otherwise you go down on your own."

Velano considered for a moment before he glared back at both of the detectives. "I want a suit."

Olivia rolled her eyes but they left the room, he had said the magic word. They saw Barba outside, he had been watching them. "Please tell me his prints are enough to nail him."

Barba looked pained. "We could do with some more evidence. All we have are his prints on the gun, she said they were wearing masks so couldn't see their faces. She can't ID him. I can argue that as it's her service weapon only her prints would be on it, but its sketchy. It could go either way."

"Well add the assault on me," Olivia said, "make sure this bastard at least goes away for a little while."

Barba nodded. Olivia turned to Amaro and said, "I'm going to call Charlotte. She should know that we got one of them."

He nodded. Olivia pulled out her cell phone and dialled the detective's number. "Charlotte. Where are you? Honey, I can't hear you. What… what…" The call disconnected.

"What's wrong," Amaro asked as she approached her desk looking concerned.

"I couldn't hear her properly, but she sounded drunk. I think she was in a bar, there was some rubbish pop crap on in the background. We need to find her, she shouldn't be drinking in her condition."

"Liv, she could be in any bar in New York City. Needle in a haystack."

"We start in the ones nearest the precinct. And then if we don't find her we try the ones closest to her apartment," Olivia said.

"I'll come with you, it will give me a chance to apologise to her," Nick said jumping to his feet.

Olivia smiled. Amaro apologising was a rare occurrence and she wanted to see it. Amanda and Fin also rose, they wanted to make sure she was ok. The last thing she needed was to drink herself into oblivion.

The four detectives walked up the block purposefully. "I think we should split up. Me and Nick will take the ones on this side. You guys start on the next block. If we don't have any luck in the next hour, we try the ones in her neighbourhood."

The group split up and began ducking in and out of bars and anywhere else selling alcohol. Dive bars, cop bars, wine bars anything, They weren't looking for long when they found her sitting on a stool at the bar in the scummiest dive within walking distance of the precinct. Sitting in front of her were three shots of tequila.

"Charlotte," Olivia began, "is that really a good idea?"

Charlotte glared at her and downed all three shots in quick succession. Attracting the attention of the bar tender she indicated that she wanted her glasses refilled.

"Here," she said, pushing a shot at Olivia and a shot at Nick before knocking back her own.

"Charley, this isn't what you need right now. You need to go home and rest. Come on," Nick said trying to help her from her stool.

She gave him a look to kill and he removed his hands from her. "Look Charley, I was an asshole."

"Yeah you were."

"I apologise for being a jerk."

Charlotte nodded before saying, "you going to have that," pointing at the shot she had placed in front of him. He shook his head and she raised the glass to her lips, saying, "to fresh starts," before she drank. She took Olivia's drink as well.

"Sweetheart come on, we're going to take you home," Olivia tried again.

"I'm good here," Charlotte said back in a deadpan voice.

Olivia almost laughed, "you are far from fine. Let's go."

Not wanting to make a scene she rose unsteadily from her bar stool, pulled about a hundred dollars in twenties out of her purse and placed them on the counter. They met Amanda and Fin on the way back to the precinct, who looked at her with concern. She obviously wasn't coping.

Olivia led her towards the Sedan that they usually used and helped her into the passenger side. "Tell Murphy I'm going to take her home and stay with her until she's settled and sobered up a bit. You guys can deal with that lowlife up there." Suddenly having a brain wave she said, "get me a copy of the CCTV discs. When she's a little less inebriated I'll get her to have a look at them. So far she has known all the main players in this case. Maybe she'll recognise someone."

They nodded and Amanda appeared five minutes later with the copies Olivia had requested. She accepted them gratefully before she climbed into the drivers' side and proceeded to take Charlotte across town to her apartment. The alcohol had taken more of an effect in that time and she had to help Charlotte as she walked. Once in her home she supported her over to the sofa, allowing her to collapse onto it. But almost immediately Charlotte pulled herself up and made her way to the liquor cabinet in her kitchen, pulling out a bottle of expensive looking whiskey and poured herself a glass.

"I think you should cut yourself off," Olivia said as she watched her.

"I told you, I'm fine. You want one?"

Olivia shook her head. "You're the one who told Blair not one week ago that alcohol is not the answer. Take your own advice."

"It's always worked for me before so why would I change it up now?"

"It didn't work for my mother. She drank to make her problems go away and it killed her."

Charlotte stopped. "I don't drink excessively. I'm in complete control."

This time Olivia didn't bother to contain her chuckle, "you call practically being carried into your apartment being in control?"

"Leave it alone Liv, I don't need you to look out for me. And if this makes me feel better what's the harm?"

Olivia sighed. "I drank. To cope with what happened to me. It didn't solve anything. I bottled everything up, I pushed everyone away. I almost lost Brian."

"Yeah? Well I don't have anyone. My family prefers that I don't come by that often, I don't have that many good friends that I can go to and any that I could all use alcohol as an escape. It's worked at getting me through all the shit that has gone on before and I'll be fine dealing with things in my own way now."

She winced as a flash of pain shot up her shoulder and went to take a sip of her whiskey, but seeing the look on Olivia's face she put it back down. "Fine," she said angrily, but went back to sit on the sofa.

"I'll get you some water." Olivia went to the counter and then returned, passing her the glass as she sat back down. "Charley, I wanted to tell you…" She was cut off by her cell phone ringing. "Benson. Yeah. What? When? Great, I'll tell her."

Charlotte looked at her expectantly. "Oh yeah. Um, I was about to tell you that we had one of the men who attacked you, but that was Barba. He's been arraigned and is out on bail. Apparently muttering something about settling some scores with some bitches who had it coming."

"So he's coming after me?"

"He could have been talking about anyone, but we'll have some unis posted outside. He won't get past them."

Charlotte shook her head. "I don't want them. I'm not hiding from this prick. He comes near me again and he gets a bullet in the head."

Olivia took her hand, "that would be fine, but we have no idea who the other three are. What if he brings reinforcements?"

They sat for the next couple of hours debating back and forth whether uniformed officers were to be sent to sit outside Charlotte's apartment block. Finally Olivia deemed that she was sober enough to take a look at the surveillance footage, to see if she could see anyone.

They sat in silence as she looked, a job that was much easier on a 60 inch flat screen, rather than the battered TVs back at the squad room or a small computer screen. They had been sitting for about half an hour when Charlotte sat up straighter and began to rewind, finally pausing when she found who she was looking for.

"No," she exclaimed.

"What? Who is that," Olivia asked.

"Fuck. Fuck, it can't be."

Olivia brought her attention back to the here and now and repeated her question.

The still image on the television was of a handsome looking young man with sandy brown/blonde hair.

Charlotte shook her head once again, she couldn't believe it. She didn't want to believe it. Rather than answer the question she changed the subject, "you got the guy cos his prints were on my gun?"

Olivia nodded, not fooled by the subject change. "You know this guy?"

"He's Nate's cousin."

"Cousin?"

"His name is Michael. Michael Wilder. He's even more of a jackass that Nate, if you can believe that. Last I heard he was run out of town because he tried to… FUCK!"

"He tried to what?"

"He sexually assaulted a girl at a party."

Olivia looked at her in surprise. "So we have a family of rapists?"

"The girl he assaulted turned down Nate for a date."

"So he raped a girl who turned his cousin down, to teach her a lesson? That's… unusual."

"They have a pretty twisted, co-dependant relationship. I never really got it, but Michael's dad was out of the picture for some reason. The story was that he left his mom for a younger woman, but one night he let slip something about visiting someone in a county prison."

"His dad is in jail?"

"I think so. Find out why and you might get closer to finding your rapist. If Nate and Michael are working together to attack these women then you need to find the reason why. They won't flip on each other, so you need as much leverage as you can get."

Olivia nodded. "Anything else?"

"Nate's the weak link, as far as I know he never laid a finger on anyone, he would just have had Michael do it. Check the CCTV of the other crimes and see if you can put Michael at those scenes too. He's a sociopath, he just doesn't care. I don't think he has ever felt remorse in his life. And maybe you should speak to the girl he attacked."

Olivia looked at her in surprise. "It's handy having a psychology graduate on the team. Who was the girl?"

"Blair."

"So we have a link between two of the victims. What about the third, her name was Cassidy Newman."

"Cassie was attacked?"

"Oh Charley, she's dead."

Charlotte got up. "I have to call her husband. He'll need to tell their little boy."

"I'll have Rollins and Fin do that, you are not on duty." Charlotte rolled her eyes. "Did she have any problems with either of the suspects?"

"Not that I recall, but I left to go to college and I tried to lose touch with both Nate and Michael when I did. Find that link and we've got them."

Olivia considered for a moment. A thought flashed across her mind, a thought that she had been having ever since Charlotte wound up in the hospital. "What are the chances that Nate was involved in attacking you?"

Charlotte sighed. "Honestly, I'm not sure. Based on everything, and if it _was_ Nate and Michael who attacked Blair and the others, then they definitely could have been pissed enough at me to have me attacked. But it's not their MO."

Olivia considered the differences between the other assaults and Charlotte's. It was entirely possible that this had not been Nate. But in a way, that made it worse. Because it meant that the bastards would still be out there, even if they did manage to link Nate and Michael to the other attacks.


	12. Chapter 12

Olivia wanted nothing more than to go home, cuddle Noah and snuggle up with Brian that evening. She had spent what felt like days going back over the surveillance tapes they had recovered from each of the crime scenes. Nick was working on finding a link between their latest victim and their suspects, as well as trying to confirm the links with the other two victims. Amanda and Fin had gone to break the news to the husband and everyone was working flat out trying to get sufficient evidence for arrest warrants. Additionally, they were trying to track down potential suspects for Charley's assault and everyone was exhausted. Since this case had broken they had each been lucky if they had got three hours sleep a night. Olivia entered her apartment and threw her keys onto the coffee table. Brian's mom was standing in the kitchen, feeding Noah his dinner, but her son was being stubborn and non-compliant. Olivia smiled at the picture. She loved her son with all her heart and Brian's mom was great with him. Just as she was about to join them her cell phone buzzed in her pocket.

"Benson," she answered automatically. "Hi… yes its ok that you called… slow down… no it's ok… no don't worry about it… yes of course… I'll be right there."

She ended the call with a sigh, and bent down to pick up her keys. "Carol," she called to her partner's mother, "do you mind staying a while longer? I have to go back out for a while. Brian shouldn't be long."

The elderly woman smiled, "no sweetheart, do what you've got to do. Me and my handsome grandson will be fine."

Olivia smiled and hurried out the door. She loved it when Carol said things like that, it made her finally feel as if she had a family. She jumped behind the wheel of her car and sped off, perhaps a little too fast. When she pulled up she was greeted by Timothy who said, "thank you, I didn't know what else to do. She won't stop drinking, and I thought you might be able to make her see sense."

Olivia placed a hand on his shoulder. "I'll try. You did the right thing calling me."

Timothy stopped in front of her, causing Olivia to have to stop in her tracks abruptly. He looked at her, his eyes filled with pain and sadness as he said seriously, "please help her. I can't bear to see her like this. I love her, I adore her and it's killing me to see her so broken."

Olivia hid her shock at his revelation well. "Trust me, I won't let her self destruct. I'll do everything I can to support her through this. But maybe you should tell her how you feel."

He shook his head. "Now is not a good time."

Olivia couldn't help but disagree, however she didn't press the matter. Sometimes a victim needed to be reassured that they were still loved, and that those close to them didn't look at them any differently in order to find the strength to move on. They stood in silence in the elevator. They entered to see Charlotte sitting with an open bottle of whiskey that was more than three quarters finished. When Olivia had left earlier it had been almost full. Charlotte was staring blankly out of the window as she sipped her drink, she didn't notice that anyone had entered the room. Tentatively Olivia and Timothy approached her, not wanting to startle her. "C," Timothy said quietly. She jumped in fright and spun around, shaking violently as she did. He raised his hands in a bid to show that he was not going to hurt her but she still looked at him with suspicion. Olivia had seen this so many times before, women who could not trust, even those who were closest to them. She had seen far too many women become hyper vigilant, aware of the tiniest sound, wary of everyone they met.

"Charley, please, you need to stop," Olivia pleaded. She was hurting for her young colleague more than she knew.

Charley raised the glass to her lips rebelliously. "It helps with the pain."

Timothy sighed, a sound that did not go unnoticed by either woman. Charlotte glared at him. "If you've got a problem leave. Go and smother Blair. Although I'm sure she needs you about as much as I do."

Timothy's face visibly crumpled as her words hit home and Olivia shot him an apologetic look. "He's just trying to help."

Charlotte scoffed. "Like you are you mean? Coming into my home, telling me what I can and cannot do, what I _need_ to do. Making me press charges when I didn't want to, making me go over and over what those bastards were going to do to me. Just because you were too weak to move on Olivia, doesn't mean that I'm as pathetic as you are."

This time it was Olivia's turn to crumple at the weight of her words and Timothy placed a sympathetic hand on her shoulder. But Charlotte wasn't finished.

"And you _Timothy_," she all but spat at him, "hanging around trying to be my knight in shining armour, it's just a joke! I told you last night I was fine, I don't need saving. What's the matter, can't get the company of girls who aren't your sister's friends? Well messed up situation or not I would never look your way, I have some standards. And coming from me that doesn't say much," she added with a cruel laugh.

"That's enough," Olivia interjected, seeing that Charlotte could go on breaking Timothy's heart all night. "Lash out at me, fine. Leave him alone, he has been nothing but kind to you."

Charlotte cast her a dirty look, "I don't want him to be kind, I want him to leave me the hell alone!"

Charlotte pushed past her and headed towards the elevator doors when she saw that neither of them were moving. "Fine, I'll go." With that she disappeared from sight, leaving Olivia and Timothy to stand alone in her apartment.

Olivia felt the pain that her colleague was feeling. The initial stage after a vicious assault where you don't know which way is up and it is easier to lash out than to face what has happened. But Charlotte was a police detective, and if she wanted to return to work she didn't have the luxury of being able to act like this. She had been through one hell of a trauma, but she had to face it head on. Running and hiding in a bottle was not going to help.

Olivia stepped out into the street from the apartment block, having followed Timothy when he stormed after Charlotte. They were nowhere to be seen. Walking towards the entrance to the underground garage she felt uneasy but forced herself to keep walking, one hand on her gun. She felt as though someone was watching her, waiting for her and it was unsettling. She was not easily spooked, but when she had a bad feeling it normally turned out to be right. Her cell phone rang, and she almost didn't answer it, thinking that she really just wanted to curl up in bed. Reluctantly she pulled it from her pocket and answered wearily, "Benson."

"Thought you'd want to know we've found Michael's dad. He's in prison for multiple counts of rape, including Felicity Greene and Helena Tanner," Amanda said down the line.

"Tanner… he raped Nathanial's mom?"

"Yeah, and that's not all, Felicity Greene used to be married to Wilder. She divorced him the month that she found out she was pregnant."

"Shit," Olivia exclaimed. So Michael Wilder was a child of rape. Like her. There was a long and uncomfortable silence.

"Liv, you still there," Amanda asked. Olivia shook herself back into the present, cleared her throat and asked, "when did he attack Helena Tanner?"

Amanda shuffled papers around in the background, "the police report says it was November 1986."

"Nathanial Tanner was born July 1987. They're brothers."

"Liv, we don't know that for sure…"

"It explains a lot. They are brothers, both conceived by rape, never knew their father until they were older. It must have been him who taught them to think that women are just there for their pleasure."

Amanda had to admit that she agreed with her colleague. They had seen crazy messed up families time and time again, and how sometimes there was just no saving some people. It was a harsh reality of their job. It was one that was hard to come to terms with, as every instinct screamed that you fight with all your might to save people from the darkest moments of their lives and there was still a part of her that believed that most people had a redeeming quality somewhere. She wanted to believe that about these boys, she wanted to believe that there was something in them that could change, that they weren't born to be rapists as a result of their parentage. And she knew Olivia was trying to believe that too. Every case like this touched a nerve with Olivia, given that she hadn't had the best start in life. It touched a nerve with Amanda too, her father had been a gambling addict and now she had become one as well, in spite of always promising herself that she would never succumb to his weakness. Maybe it was just something that she was born with, destined to be as a result of her genes.

The detectives ended the call and Olivia continued to cautiously make her way towards her car. She was alert, especially after what had just happened to Charlotte. But she was also exhausted. Finally she reached her vehicle and opened the passenger door to throw in her purse. She had no longer closed it again when she felt a hand at her back and before she knew what was happening she had been thrust forward, her head colliding with the hard, cold metal. She was dazed but reached for her gun. Before she could, however, a gloved hand pulled it from her holster and trained it on her, aiming for her head. She blinked a couple of times, trying to clear the fuzziness from her mind and saw that she was faced with two assailants, dressed in black.

"Scream and you die," one hissed, while the other reached down and roughly pulled her to her feet, his grip on her arm far too tight.

"You don't want to do this," she said, keeping her voice calm, "I'm a cop."

Her attacker didn't say anything, but forced her up against her car, holding her there with one arm, pinning her, while the other ran up and down her body, searching her, exploring her. She struggled against him but stopped when the second man advanced towards her and pressed her own gun to the back of her head. She cleared her throat and open her mouth to try and reason with them when she was spun around to face them.

Her arms were pulled in front of her and her hands bound together with a thick cable tie. She wanted badly to fight, but with a gun to her head she didn't dare. There would come a moment when they were distracted and she could make her move, but the time was not now.

"Stop, you don't have to do this," she implored them, but this only resulted in a thick scarf being forced into her mouth and knotted behind her head. When her attacker did this his sleeve rode up and she was able to see the snake tattoo on his right forearm. Her eyes widened as her suspicions were confirmed, it was their rapist. Once again she felt hands running up and down her body, roughly grabbing her all over, in intimate places that only Brian should touch, but eventually stopped when they discovered her car keys in her pants pocket.

She was led around to the rear, and she began to struggle against her captor as she realised that they were intending on putting her in the trunk. She had no intention of becoming trapped, not like this. Not again. She had spent enough time in the trunk of a car in her lifetime and she felt herself succumbing to a flashback of when she was abducted by William Lewis. This was just the window of opportunity her attackers needed, they wasted no time in violently shoving her into the dark space while she fought against the terrible memories that had resurfaced. Through the gag she let out a faint whimper as the lid was slammed shut, leaving her in darkness.


	13. Chapter 13

Amanda arrived at work the next morning to find a worse for wear Charlotte sitting at her desk, half asleep, in the same clothes as she had been wearing the day before. She was staring blankly at their file on the three attacks, reading the most recent document that described the discoveries regarding their two prime suspects. She was stunned, a reaction that was made worse by her pounding hangover. She almost couldn't process what she was reading, and like Olivia made the jump that there was a strong possibility that Nathanial and Michael were brothers and not cousins as everyone had thought.

Amanda approached the younger woman, seeing the pain in her eyes, from her thumping headache, but also from what she had suffered. Something struck her as she approached. The pain in Charlotte's eyes had always been there, it just worsened since her attack. She felt a twinge of guilt as she placed a hand on Charlotte's healthy shoulder.

"Charlotte, honey, what are you doing here? You should be at home resting," she said gently.

"Need to keep busy," Charley mumbled, "got to stop the bastards before the hurt someone else."

Amanda sighed but let her be, she knew just how badly she did on her own, and understood the woman's need to distract herself. Fin and Nick showed up, surprised to see their colleague, but didn't say anything to her. In all honesty, they didn't know what to say. It was only when Murphy appeared that she was disturbed, and he waved her into his office.

"What part of stay home and rest did you not understand detective," he demanded, a little harsher than he had intended to.

Charlotte looked at him, her big grey eyes full of sadness. "I need to be here sir. I can't stay at home when there is some bastard out there attacking my friends. Please. No field work, I'll ride a desk."

Murphy wavered slightly, but was determined to remain strong. "You need to heal properly and you can't do that here. See a therapist, take some time."

Charlotte's voice was barely a whisper, "I don't do well being shrunk. Listen, Tanner and Wilder, if this is them are attacking people connected with my world. You need me."

Murphy couldn't argue that she had pretty much done all the work on the case so far, made all the links. "Fine. But I see your ass out of that chair, and I'll have you escorted home."

She nodded and winced in pain as she rose to her feet. Her shoulder and ribs were still extremely tender. Murphy immediately regretted his decision to allow her to stay, but remained silent. He could see that she needed this, at least in the short term. As she exited the office Nick approached her and said in hushed tones, "are you alright? Do you need anything?"

She gave him a small smile, "thanks, but I'm fine."

"I don't think you will be once she's done with you," he muttered, nodding towards the woman standing at her desk.

Nick moved to walk away and allow the women some privacy but Charlotte grabbed his arm and whispered, "stay. Please. I need all the back up I can get."

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Olivia tried to sit up. It was dark and she couldn't see a thing. It became pretty obvious that she was blindfolded, the material across her eyes was tied so tight that she couldn't even open them. Her gag was still in place but her arms were now bound behind her back and her legs were tied far too tight. She lay on the hard ground, trying, and failing, to right herself into a sitting position. But she could hardly move. She couldn't hear anything and with being deprived of her sight she felt a feeling of panic start to rise, one that she fought to supress immediately. Distantly she could hear a woman whimpering, in pain and fear, and every instinct she possessed screamed at her to help her. Except she was helpless too. She fought against her binds to no avail and flinched when a hand grabbed her and roughly pulled her into a sitting position. Her back slammed against the wall and she groaned into her gag.

At this moment it struck her that she didn't remember anything after she had been thrown into the trunk of her own car. That concerned her, she couldn't be sure what had happened and she had no idea where she was. A vision of the snake tattoo flashed across her mind and she remembered that she was with the bastard who had attacked those three girls.

Olivia couldn't tell how long she was left sitting against the wall. She continued to struggle against her binds but the ties were too thick. She groaned as pain shot up her arms from where the harsh plastic cut into her wrists.

"Uh uh uh detective," a voice she didn't recognised said, in such a tone that reminded her of a child who had just got a new toy. He crouched down in front of her and pulled her blindfold from her. She blinked as her eyes adjusted to the light and then she found herself face to face with Michael Wilder. He was handsome, she noted, as she took in his features, trying not to be disconcerted at the fact that he was staring at her like she was a piece of meat. Eventually she averted her eyes, his gaze boring into her was making her feel more and more on edge, but he clasped her jaw tightly in his hand and turned her head back so she was forced to look into his cold eyes. "We're going to teach you a lesson, Detective Benson. You and Barbie both."

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"Mrs Williams, what can I do…," Charlotte began, but was cut off by her friend's mother raising her hand. Nick and Charley could tell that she had intended to come in all guns blazing, yelling and screaming at them, but was thrown off by Charlotte's battered and bruised appearance.

"It's Blair…," she started, "she's gone missing."

Charlotte's eyes widened in concern. "What do you mean missing?"

"She didn't come home last night, she went for a walk to clear her head, the first time she's left the house in days and then she didn't come home. I've been calling her cell non-stop and it just goes to voice mail…"

"Ok, it's ok, we'll track her down. Just try and calm down, we need you thinking clearly if we're going to find her."

Mrs Williams sank into the nearest seat and Nick waved Amanda and Fin into the room. They needed to hear this too. "What happened to you," Mrs Williams eventually asked Charlotte, nodding towards her arm in the sling and her cuts and bruises.

"Minor disagreement with four assholes on the street, no big deal," she said hurriedly casting a look at Nick, daring him to contradict her. He didn't, understanding that she did not wish to detract anything from Mrs Williams' troubles. She was more concerned for her friend than she was for herself and her own predicament. He mentally applauded her for that, most people in the levels of pain Charley was experiencing would sit on the side lines. They sat for over an hour brainstorming places where Blair could be, any clues as to where she had gone when something caught Charlotte's eye out in the squad room. Murphy was trying to attract her attention and was motioning that she join him. Beside him was a twelve year old girl.

She excused herself and approached Murphy exclaiming, "Mia! What's wrong baby, your mom said she told you to stay home."

Mia was sobbing hard and Charlotte pulled her into a one armed hug, trying to comfort the little girl. As she hugged Mia tight Charlotte was alerted to the fact that something hard and plastic was digging into her back. She released Mia and noticed that she was clutching a doll, like something she would have played with when she was a few years younger. This seemed off to Charlotte as she had not seen Mia play with a doll since she was eight. Drying her eyes she asked the little girl gently, "Mia, what happened?"

Through her sobs Mia managed to stammer, "Blair… gone… doll… came… to… house… note…," she thrust the doll at Charlotte who read the note attached to the Barbie doll.

_Barbie,_

_You think you are so special,_

_You think you had the right to humiliate me,_

_It hurt,_

_Now it's my turn to hurt you!_

_And if that means I have to hurt other people then I will…_

Charlotte looked at the note with a look of disgust. This didn't go unnoticed by Murphy who asked in a low voice, "what is it?"

"I think Nate has Blair," she responded.

Murphy looked at her in concern, "her rapist has abducted her?"

Charlotte nodded weakly. "This is all my fault," she whispered as she handed him the note.

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Olivia strained her neck, twisting it this way and that trying to identify the source of the whimpering, but the culprit was shielded from her view. She was more scared for the other young woman than she was for herself at this point. The sounds were full of fear, full of pain and Olivia would have given anything to stop it, to help her. Occasionally she would hear one of them chuckle, a chilling, evil sound that she would remember until the day she died. They were enjoying every moment of the torture they were inflicting on her.

Finally one of them approached and looked at her with a look of sheer ecstasy. He reached down to stroke her cheek and grunted in disgust when she jerked her head away. He crouched down in front of her and grabbed the sides of her head with both hands, forcing her to look at him. She closed hers, she had no desire to see the cold dead ones that he possessed but he shook her violently, resulting in her head hitting the wall behind her and she allowed a small, muffled whimper escape her lips. He chuckled, the same sound she had heard him make earlier. She shuddered.

"Stop playing around," a harsh male voice called from the next room, "get her in here. It won't be long before our guest arrives."

Olivia was pulled to her feet and unceremoniously, and as if she was a light as a feather he slung her over his shoulder. She resisted against him but that only made him hold her tighter. She was unable to make much of difference to her predicament in her bound state, and she felt helpless and weak. Before long she was thrown onto a bed so hard that she bounced a couple of times on the mattress as she landed. Suddenly the hands of both men were on her, exploring her body, violating, touching her all over and she writhed as best she could, screaming in to her gag. Eventually her hands were released, and faster than the speed of light she pulled them out from under her on the mattress, swinging at both men with all of her might, seeing her chance to fight back. She caught one hard on the cheek, the other in the nose and they grunted in pain and shock. It wasn't long, however, before they advanced again, fire in their eyes, intent on restraining their uncooperative captive.

She swung again, this time catching one in the gut and the other in the genitals. This time it slowed them enough that she had time to sit herself upright and she looked around frantically for something, anything, to free her legs. While she was scanning the room one of the men had recovered sufficiently to dive on top of her, pushing her back down onto the mattress, straddling her as she struggled beneath him.

"A little help," he screamed at his partner who was still cradling his package but limped around to the other side of the bed, and held her wrists. She screamed, but the sound was so pathetic and weak that it made them laugh again and she closed her eyes, trying to block out the sound of their glee. She was brought back to her senses when she felt her shirt being pushed over her head, her other captor only releasing her wrists for long enough to remove the clothing from her body completely. She felt exposed, lying beneath them, her blue bra the only thing covering her torso. Once her wrists were encased again the ties around her legs were cut and she felt a flash of fear take hold of her as her assailant pulled at her pants, stripping them from her body, leaving her in only her matching underwear set.

They looked hungrily at the sight below them, taking in her fear, noting that she had yet to shed a tear. This irritated them more than anything, she should be more scared than this. All the other girls had wept, begged, offered to do anything they wanted if they didn't hurt them. This one just looked at them defiantly, as though daring them to try anything, even in her less than advantageous situation.

She continued to fight against them as they pulled her to her feet. Pinning her between them they continued their exploration of her body, allowing their hands to touch her everywhere, one taking particular enjoyment in abusing her breasts, the other cupping her between her legs. She twisted and turned against their hold, struggling to free herself from them. Realising that she wasn't getting away from them anytime soon she reached up and pulled her gag from her mouth and screamed at the top of her lungs. She let out an ear splitting shriek, but then all too quickly she felt something hard and metal collide with the back of her head, almost hard enough to crack her skull. Her world went black.


	14. Chapter 14

Charlotte and Murphy were trying to make sense of what the note meant. Was it just to taunt her? Was it a warning? Was it a threat? Who were they intending to hurt? What were they going to do? They had already proved that they weren't exactly criminal masterminds, they were just evil. But in some ways that was more worrying than if they knew what they were doing. Criminals who were practiced usually managed to remain in control. Those who weren't were unpredictable and that almost made them more dangerous. More deadly. More terrifying.

Charlotte ran her good hand through her hair. She knew that if her hunch was correct they were trying to prove a point to her. That they could do what they wanted, when they wanted, and there was nothing she could do to stop them. Murphy looked at her intently, "Charlotte, what would they do, where would they go? You know them the best, do they have anywhere they feel safe?"

"I… I… I don't know… we need to check their finances, see what property they own…," she began, but was interrupted by a man storming into the squad room with a baby in a carrier.

"Where is Charlotte Van Horne," he demanded, shouting over the noise.

Charlotte spun around, "I'm Charlotte," she said.

He strode over to them and pulled out his cell phone. "They have Olivia," he stammered, as he thrust his phone at her. Charlotte took it and looked at the screen.

"What, what is this," she asked.

"Play it. Play it," he shouted, making her jump. Charlotte nodded and played the video. On the screen was Olivia, barely clothed, tied up and beaten. She watched as they continued to beat her and torture her, breathing deeply. Finally the screen went black and a message popped up.

_THIS IS ON YOU BARBIE._

_YOU WANT TO MAKE IT STOP_

_THEN DO EXACTLY AS WE SAY._

She paled as she looked up at Brian and Murphy. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," she whispered at Brian, "this is all my fault."

Brian looked at her, and saw the dead look in her eyes. "This isn't because of you. This is because of them, but you are my best chance of finding her. Please." He was begging, he loved Olivia so much that the thought of her in this situation physically hurt him.

Charlotte had all but forgotten about Mia until she piped up, "Charlotte, what wrong? Are Blair and that lady going to be alright?"

She looked down into the scared little face standing beside her, and put her arm around the little girl, "oh honey, I'm going to do everything I can to make sure that they are fine."

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Olivia sat, bound to a chair, where she had been since she had woken up. She had no idea how much time had passed and when she had come to she had noticed that she was sore all over her body. Thankfully they area between her legs seemed to have been left alone, but she didn't hold out much hope that it would stay that way much longer. There was a sharp pounding in her head, she surmised that was the result of whatever they had hit her with. Finally she had noticed the girl in the corner, bound, gagged, beaten and sobbing. She wanted badly to be able to offer her words of comfort, anything to help her, but she had been gagged again, making it impossible. She had struggled against her binds until she had no energy left and then had found no other option but to sit and wait for her captors. She wasn't scared of them as such, she was more scared that she didn't know what they were going to do.

They had made a recording of her being beaten and assaulted, and it was killing her to think that there was proof of such an attack on video. It made her begin to struggle against the ropes restraining her once more, she had to get free, get the other girl and get out.

It was only when she heard footsteps approaching them that she felt her resolve weaken. She had no way to defend herself, let alone anyone else. Michael and Nate walked in to the room and smiled at their prisoners. Olivia looked them up and down, trying to gauge where their heads were. She needed them to stay calm, the more volatile they were the more unpredictable they would become.

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Murphy, Charlotte and the other detectives gathered in his office. They needed to find Olivia and fast.

"Someone get me Barba, we are going to need warrants," Murphy said to a uniformed officer.

Charlotte was flicking through papers, files that they had made on Nate and Michael. She was looking for something, anything that would suggest where they had taken their victims. Suddenly she stopped, "we need to get their moms down here."

The other detectives looked at her as if she was crazy. "Look I know it's an unusual suggestion, but they'll help us if they know what their sons have become. They are victims too, we need to play on that."

Amanda nodded and she and Fin went to go and pick them up. The rest continued to search for any clue as to where they had taken the two women. But they seemed to have hit a wall. Brian approached Charlotte, and once again she was asked, "so what happened to you?"

She sighed and just said, "that's not important right now."

He looked at her with interest but didn't push it. Noah started to shriek in the background, and their attention was turned to the baby. Brian picked him up, tried feeding him, burping him, all the usual and he just wouldn't settle.

"He misses his mom," Brian said to Charlotte as he shushed him, rocking him back and forth.

Charlotte held out her good arm, "would you like me to try?"

Gratefully Brian handed her the child, careful to make Charlotte had a good grip on him before he let go. Almost immediately Noah's cries began to subside until he stopped altogether.

"How did you do that," Brian asked.

"I guess I remind him of his momma," she replied, looking down at the beautiful little face staring back up at her. A tear leaked from her eyes and she whispered quietly to the little angel in her arms, "we're going to get her back little buddy. We're going to get your mom back."

Brian smiled faintly, "motherhood suits you," he said. Charlotte returned his smile, "I've had some practice."

Brian once again looked at her with interest, but as she had turned her attention back to Noah he let it slide. He got the feeling that Charlotte had a few skeletons in her closet and that she wasn't one to share the deep, dark secrets of her past.

Eventually Amanda and Fin returned with Nate and Michael's moms.

"Felicity. Helena," Charlotte greeted them. They sat down.

"Our boys didn't do this, they can't have," Helena began.

"I'm so sorry, but they did this. They are doing this. They have kidnapped two women and we need to know if there's anywhere you can think of that they might have taken them. "

"They can't have…," Felicity chipped in, "they wouldn't, not after…"

"I am so sorry to make you do this. You went through a lot all those years ago and I wish I didn't have to drag up your past. But is there any chance they know who their father is? What he did to you?"

Both women looked stunned. "Our boys have different fathers," Felicity stammered.

"I know that's not true. William Tanner raped you both, and he is in prison for about a dozen more. And you got pregnant. Both of you. You raised them as cousins, but they are brothers, aren't they?"

Helena started to cry, "I don't see how they could know. We never told anyone that William attacked both of us. I should have believed Felicity when she told me what he did to her. But he was my husband and I believed him. And then…"

Nick put a hand on her shoulder comfortingly, "it's not your fault. Rapists are born liars and they know how to manipulate." He placed a manila folder on the table in front of them. "But it looks like they have been visiting their dad in prison. Could he have told them?"

Felicity looked at the copy of the visitor's log in front of her, "that son of a bitch."

For the next few hours they went over and over every small detail about Nate and Michael, trying to find a solid lead as to where they would have taken Olivia and Blair. Charlotte's cell phone buzzed and she rose to answer it. "Van Horne."

"Now, now Barbie, you aren't being very smart."

"Nate? What the hell are you doing?"

She walked into the cribs for some privacy.

"Getting our mother's involved, wasn't a good idea."

"What other choice did we have?"

"Well now I'll have to hurt your nice Detective friend. Unless you would rather I hurt Blair instead?"

"Don't hurt them, please. Tell me where you are and you can have me if you let them go."

"Hmm, but how do I know you won't take your cop buddies with you?"

"You think I'm going to put them in more danger? I'll come alone, you have my word."

"We have eyes on you, so one hint that you have anyone with you both of them will die. And you know that we mean it, you saw the pictures of Cassie."

"Just tell me where you are."

Nate gave her the address and hung up. Charlotte leant against the wall of the cribs her head against the cool bricks. She was shaking slightly and she breathed heavily. The enormity of what she had just promised to do struck her like a ton of bricks. She had just said that she would take the place of a rapist's victims three days after she had almost become one herself. Not knowing if she was dumb or just crazy she left the room, almost bumping into Nick in the hallway.

"Hey, where have you been," he asked catching her in his arms before he knocked her over.

"Uh, I just needed a few minutes, to gather my head. What's going on?"

"Felicity and Helena are giving us a list of their properties. You should come back."

"Yeah, just give me a few, I need to make some calls."

Nick looked at her with suspicion, but returned to the squad room. Charlotte waited until he was back in Murphy's office before she headed for the elevator. Once outside she hailed a taxi and climbed into the back.

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Olivia sat in her chair looking around the room. She was looking for anything, something to help her, anything that would suggest where they were. But the windows were boarded up and the rooms were extremely bare. The paint was peeling from the walls, pipes dripped and the floorboards creaked. Finally Olivia had been able to establish that the other woman was Blair, and had realised that they were a trap to lure Charlotte to them. When Nate had been on the phone to her she had screamed into her gag the entire time, trying to get her to hear her, to know not to come. That had earned her a couple of slaps when he had disconnected the call. She didn't want Charlotte to put herself in danger for her. Whenever Nate and Michael left her and Blair alone she tried with all her might to free herself from the ropes holding her to the chair. Her wrists had pretty serious rope burns as did her ankles. But she didn't stop trying, regardless of how much it hurt her. She whimpered quietly into her gag occasionally as she did as the pain shot up her entire arm.

Michael was standing leaning against the doorframe staring at her. It was making her extremely uncomfortable and she was struggling to ignore him, but refused to look at him, because that would only show him that he was bothering her. He approached her and leaned over her chair, his face so close to hers that she flinched backwards slightly.

"I'm going to have so much fun with you," he said, his voice flirty, but she knew he was only doing it to torture her, "it's going to absolutely destroy Charlotte."

"You bastard," she shouted through her gag.

He laughed, "sorry what was that darling?"

"Leave her alone," Olivia tried to say, the material in her mouth making it uncomfortably dry.

"Why would I want to do that? She's a hot piece of ass and she thinks she can get away with whatever she wants. She deserves everything that comes to her."

Olivia looked mutinous. If she had been able to talk or move she would certainly have fought back more, and/or put him on his ass. So she just looked at him in disgust. He reached out and put a hand on her cheek, stroking it. She tried to move away but with her limited mobility it wasn't that easy.

Nate entered the room behind them and took in the scene before him. "Come on, let's move her," he said, motioning to Olivia, and then nodding his head towards the bed.

She felt panic rising, this was becoming all to like the time when Lewis had held her captive. They cut the restraints around her legs, and then only when Michael had a strong grip on her arms did Nate cut the ones around her wrists. Immediately she tried to pull out of Michael's grasp, but he was very strong, surprisingly so even. She tried to pull away from him, but Nate took hold of her other arm and between the two of them they easily forced her onto the bed. Nate got on top her, straddling her and keeping her legs pinned. Michael pulled her hands up to the headboard and bound them there with thick cable ties. All the while they were doing this she struggled and fought beneath them, trying to find some way to free herself from them. Nothing she did made any difference however, and she found herself once again completely helpless. As soon as they moved to bind her legs she began to pull on the ties holding her wrists. This pissed them off, it showed them that she wasn't completely terrified of them. She was strong and they hadn't broken her yet. Every other woman had just cried and pleaded. Olivia had more balls than all of them put together and it angered them. But they consoled themselves with the fact that it would be more fun to watch both Olivia and Charlotte break together. Once they got one, the other would follow quickly behind.

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Charlotte stood outside a very beaten down looking building. Tiles littered the garden and the path, the pipes were rusty and the windows were either broken or boarded up. She noticed a security camera above the door, which looked like it was made of reinforced steel. There would be little chance of anyone following her in there undetected. She steeled herself before pulling her cell phone from her pocket and dialling the number of her last call.

"I'm here," she said, her voice betraying no emotion. "Now please, let them go."


	15. Chapter 15

Charlotte stood outside the building gathering herself before she threw herself to the lions. She took a moment to take a few deep breaths and fight the flashbacks that were trying to plague her mind. She was brought back to the present, however, when the steel door was pulled open with an almighty creaking. She noticed that the windows had bars across them, meaning that once she was inside she would have limited ways to get Blair and Olivia out. The hallway was dark and she couldn't see anything as she peered through the gap, and she was all too aware that her heart was pounding in her throat as she entered her own little version of hell. She found herself faced with Nathanial and for a moment they just stared at each other, fire in their eyes, his full of lust and desire, hers full of hatred and disgust.

"Where are they? What have you done to them," she asked, her voice sounding a lot stronger than she felt.

"Follow me," Nate said with a smirk on his face, taking in his newest captive's beaten appearance.

"Look, just let them go, you have me now, you don't need them," she said, knowing that this was not going to make much impact.

"Now, now Barbie, that would spoil all the fun," Nate almost laughed, taking a few steps forward and gripping her injured arm tightly, so that she had to work to contain a wince, "and it only just got interesting."

She tried to pull her arm from his grasp, but he dragged her up a flight of stairs that were rotting and looked ready to collapse at any moment. He led her through a maze of doors around the ginormous dilapidated house.

Finally he pulled her into a dark and dingy looking room, with only a radiator and some rusty pipes. Adjoining it to one side was a room filled with monitors and computer equipment, and to the other was a room which contained a bed. Before she had a chance to see properly he forced her up against the wall.

"Look, stop, just take me to them," Charlotte said, trying to insert some authority into her voice.

"Let's get one thing straight you little bitch, you don't tell me what to do! You will show me some respect, and you will do what you are told. Maybe if you behave yourself we won't have to hurt them."

Charlotte looked into his eyes and saw a crazed look in them, and she felt her fear rising. She had never been scared of Nate before, she had mostly found him pathetic and unintimidating, but that was perhaps part of the problem. He felt emasculated and this was why he felt the need to exert his power over others.

"Nate, this isn't you," Charlotte almost whispered, "you're not this person."

This earned her a slap across the face, so hard that the impact made her ears ring and left an angry red mark on her cheek. She managed to contain her cry of pain but just barely. He grabbed her by the throat pinning her to the wall. She could barely breathe and she tried to pull his hand away from her throat but to no avail. She gasped for breath and coughed, "Nate… can't… breathe…"

Her face was slowly turning bluer and bluer from the lack of oxygen and it was only when she was close to passing out he released her. She slid down the wall to the floor clutching her throat and trying to get some much needed air into her lungs while he stood over her, looking at her with a deep sense of satisfaction.

Still trying to recover she didn't hear the footsteps approaching her. She was shocked when a hand twisted in her hair and pulled her to her feet, and she found herself staring down Michael Wilder.

"So glad you could finally join us Barbie," he said, looking at her gloatingly.

"Yeah well you were always the life and soul of the party, I couldn't wait to catch up. By the way how was Michigan?"

His hold on her hair tightened and she closed her eyes in a grimace. He led her through to the adjoining room and threw her to the ground at the foot of the bed. Falling to the floor with a crash she landed on her dislocated shoulder and cried out in agony. She took in the scene before her, Blair was lying tied and gagged on the floor and she looked terrified. Olivia was tied to the bed, half naked, trying to pull herself free. She dragged herself to her feet, with great difficulty and spun around to face her attackers.

"Let them go. Both of them. This is crazy, you have me now you don't need them."

Michael advanced on her and she took an involuntary step back. He grabbed the waistband of her jeans and pulled her roughly towards him so that she was pressed up against him. Placing a hand on the back of her neck and pressing her further against him she couldn't do anything but feel his hard-on. She had to fight an internal battle not to panic, not to succumb to the flashback that threatened to swamp her.

Moving his face so close to hers that his lips brushed against her ear he whispered, "why would I want to do that? We're going to have so much fun."

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Murphy looked out into the squad room from the interview, combing the crowd for any sign of his detective. No one had seen Charlotte for a couple of hours and he was starting to feel concerned. He knew how much these guys were gunning for her so he couldn't rule out that they had managed to somehow abduct her, but on the other hand there was the fact that she was injured and could easily have fainted and or worse.

"Lieutenant, what do you need," Barba said, breaking Murphy's train of thought.

"Uh, we need warrants for Wilder and Tanner's financials, their homes, their cell phones, and anything else you can get us. They've abducted Liv and their first victim Blair." He lowered his voice. "And I can't find Charlotte, there's a chance…"

Barba looked at the expression on the SVU commanding officer's face and saw the worry in it. "Listen, you don't know that they've got Detective Van Horne. She could have gone out for some air."

"For two hours? Listen, you're right, we don't know where Charlotte is, but if they do have her, I'm not sure she'll survive a second attack. She's still hurting so much from the last one. And Liv, do you really think she'll come out the other side if they do anything to her?"

Barba had to agree. "I'll get you your warrants. You work on finding out if Charlotte really is missing or if she is just taking a beat. She's still recovering, she maybe just needed a rest."

Murphy nodded and motioned for Amanda to approach him. "Rollins, I need you to try and contact Charlotte. I haven't seen her in a while and I just need to check in. Keep it on the DL though, I don't want to cause a panic."

Amanda looked concerned but nodded, "copy that," she said as she walked away. Pulling out her cell phone she dialled the detective's number. Straight to voicemail. She tried again. The same thing happened. Running a hand through her hair she checked the entire station house for a trace of her co-worker. There was no sign of her anywhere and no indication as to where she went.

"Hey, what's up," Nick asked, surprising her. She jumped slightly and said, slightly too quickly, "nothing. Any closer to finding them?"

Nick shook his head, "they could be anywhere. We're waiting on their financial records. Me and Fin are about to head to the prison where Michael's dad is at, see if he knows anything."

Amanda nodded, but she wasn't really listening. "Ok, see you later," she said as she hurried towards the elevator. He followed her, "hey, what's going on?"

"Just worried I guess, and a little distracted. It's fine."

Nick took her hand for a brief second, "you sure that's it?"

Amanda nodded again, "yeah I'm good."

Amanda hurried in to the TARU an hour later. Rushing up to a technician that she recognised she pulled him aside.

"Rollins, if you want to get me alone all you have to do is asked," he said with a laugh.

"Stop it," she said, "I need a favour. And I need you to keep it on the DL."

He looked at her with interest. "What do you need?"

"Long story, but one of our detectives has been abducted by a couple of rapists, and another detective has disappeared and is not answering her phone. We just want to make sure she's safe, they were really gunning for her too."

The technician nodded. "Come with me." He lead her into an empty lab and fired up the computer. "This isn't exactly authorised with warrants is it?"

"We just need to find her, please," she said, "this won't go any further."

Five minutes later the tech had called up Charlotte's phone records. "Ok, she had a call two and a half hours ago from an unregistered disposable phone."

"Is that it? You can't tell us where the call was made from?"

"Give me a minute, I may be able to give you something, within a twenty block radius."

"Twenty blocks?"

"Best I can do, it's a disposable cell, there's only so much we can get from it. Her cell is dead."

Amanda nodded. He handed her the rough location on a piece of paper. He also wrote the number for the cell phone. Just as she was about to leave he called to her, "this is just between us right?"

"Yeah, of course. Thanks." She all but ran out onto the street to her car. Pulling out her own cell, she dialled Murphy, "hi Lieutenant, I've got a rough location and a cell number. We got anything from the warrants? Ok, I'll be right back."

It took her twenty minutes to pull up outside the station house and she hurried back to the squad room. Murphy was going through lists and lists of financial records. She explained what her friend at TARU had told her as she sat down. They were searching for anything close to where they believed Nate might have taken Charlotte.

Finally an hour later Amanda found something, an address in Harlem which was twelve blocks within the search range. Having checked with their suspects mothers who confirmed that they owned property in that area they headed back out to the car. Amanda's cell rang again, "Rollins," she answered.

"Yeah, we spoke to the father, and he said that they were thinking of buying property…," Nick said down the other end of the phone.

"In Harlem?"

Nick strained to hide the surprise, "yeah, how did you know that?"

"Just meet us there, me and Murphy are on our way to check it out."

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Olivia could only observe as Michael and Nate pawed Charlotte all over her bruised and broken body. She pulled at her bonds and shouted into her gag, begging them to let her go and leave her alone. Charlotte struggled against them as best she could, trying not to give them the satisfaction of seeing that they were hurting her. Eventually Olivia managed to find enough strength in her voice to scream loudly enough to grab their captors' attention. Nate stormed over to her and roughly pulled the material from her mouth.

"What," he yelled at her.

"Leave her alone!"

Reaching down to stroke her cheek he simply said, "make me," with an evil chuckle. "But if you want to join the party…," he continued, running his hand up her left leg, slowly moving it towards her inner thigh.

"Nate don't touch her," Charlotte shouted, pulling away from Michael's hold and advancing on their other attacker. Michael was too fast however and grabbed her around the shoulders, making sure to put pressure on her injured one. Whimpering in pain Charlotte resisted, trying to free herself from his touch. Nate spun around to face her, his eyes on fire.

"Please stop this. You don't have to do any of this."

"You still don't get it Barbie. We'll do whatever we want. And we want to make you suffer."

"Ok, fine, make me suffer, but please let them go. I'll do whatever you want."

Michael leaned down to kiss her neck, "but that wouldn't be anywhere near as fun as torturing you by hurting them."

Nate pulled Olivia's gun from his waistband and pointed it at her head. "And besides, this will make you do whatever we want." He ran the barrel along her cheek bone and she flinched away from it.

"What do you want," she whispered, breathing heavily.

"Strip," Michael said in her ear, kissing her neck as he did.

Unable to contain her look of terror she started to panic. "I can't," she stammered. Nate grabbed her by her hair and put the gun against her temple. "He said strip," he shouted, making her jump.

"Please don't do this. I can't…," before she could finish Michael began tugging at her shirt and the straps of her sling. Charlotte was shaking and tried to swat his hands away. He was stronger than she however, and succeeded in freeing her arm from her sling within a couple of seconds and then before she had time to try and fight back he had her shirt up over her head, revealing her bra and her strapped up ribs. She looked into Nate's eyes, pleading with him to stop, but not wanting to miss out on the fun he began undoing the belt on her jeans.

Olivia began shouting at them to stop and leave her alone. Nate and Michael ignored her and proceeded to pull her jeans down her legs, making her take off her Converse as they did. Within a few seconds she was standing in her raspberry coloured underwear set. She tried to cover herself up with her hands, but there was nothing she could do to hide the bruises on her thighs, the bandages around her torso and the small cuts and bruises that covered her entire body. Both men looked at her with a kind of sick satisfaction, assuming that she was terrified because she was weak like all the other girls had been.

Michael pulled her close to him, spinning her around so he could stroke her cheek. "You know, we are going to have so much fun with you. Before we kill you."

Nate pressed the gun into her back and they pulled her around to the foot of the bed. Michael picked up some rope from the floor and began trying to wind it around her wrists. Nate's hands were running all over her body and Charlotte flinched away from the feel of the cold metal against her skin. While they were attempting to tie Charlotte, no one noticed that Olivia had finally managed to break through her own binds and free herself from the bed. She quietly got up unnoticed and crept up behind Nate, grabbing the gun and pulling it from his grip. Quick as a flash she had it pointed at his head.

"Let her go," she said loudly to Michael.

He spun Charlotte around, trying to use her as a shield, slithering an arm around her throat, pressing it against her neck hard, cutting off her air supply. Nate spun around in shock and Olivia used his confusion to give her the opportunity to hit him on the head with the butt of her gun. He fell to the ground knocked out cold and Michael yelled in anger, tightening his grip on Charlotte's neck. Charlotte, however was at least a foot shorter than Michael, so Olivia managed to get a shot at him easily enough.

Charlotte was struggling to breathe but while Michael and Olivia were yelling at each other she managed to find the strength to throw an elbow back, catching him in the ribs and he let her go with a cry of pain. She clasped onto the frame of the bed as she tried to get her breath back, coughing and spluttering as she did. Michael regained his composure and rushed at Olivia, pinning her up against the wall, grabbing onto her gun hand and slammed it up against the brick wall, in an attempt to get her to release it. They struggled over the weapon, and once Charlotte had recovered she threw herself at Michael, trying to pull him away from her colleague. He had managed to get a hold on the gun however and the three were grappling and fighting.

Nate regained consciousness and joined in, trying to regain control of the two women. He grabbed Charlotte around her waist, putting pressure on her fractured ribs, lifting her off her feet as he did and making her cry out in pain. Olivia and Michael each battled to maintain control of the weapon until suddenly there was a loud bang and someone fell to the floor.


End file.
